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^‘BEAUFOY RODE UNDER THE PORTCULLIS OF THE GREAT 


GATE 


THE SEIGNEUR 
DE BEAUFOY 


-V 

HAMILTON DRUMMOND 


Illustrated by 
A. VAN ANROO Y 



BOSTON- L. C. PAGE 
£5fCOMPANY • MC Mil 


TZ3 


THE LI'^r.ARV 
COWGRSSS, 

I'v/o Receive® 

MAY. r 1902 

COPVRtSHT ENTRY 

'^02- 

CLASS Ct^KXc. N«. 

3 S 0 ot 

COPY &. 


Copyright^ jg02 

By L. C. Page and Company 

(incorporated) 

All rights reserved 



# 

c « 



c • 


'•published May, 1902 


I 


CONTENTS 


How Beaufoy Went A-wooing 

Beaufoy’s Ward 

Beaufoy’s Vengeance 

How Our Lady of Succour Came to Beaufoy 
How the King Came to Beaufoy . 

The Justice of Beaufoy 

How Beaufoy Cured the Madness of Mesnil 

Beaufoy’s Token 

High and Low Justice 


7 

36 

64 

93 

118 

152 

175 

203 

222 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAQK 

“ Beaufoy rode under the portcullis of the 

GREAy gate” ..... Frontispiece 

“ The Abbess stood, a group of her nuns about 

HER ” 6o 

“He half drew his rein as he spoke” . . 95 

“ A WOMAN, THE SPOTLESS WHITE OF WHOSE ROBE 

SHONE DAZZLING IN THE SUN . . . .112 

“ ‘ If he so much as touch me, I shall kill 

him’” 1 71 

“ Drawing his sword, he snapped it across his 

KNEE ” 201 

“ As THE Seigneur waxed hot, so did the Church- 
man WAX cold” 215 

“The ARROW, drawn to the head, was loosed” 250 


THE SEIGNEUR DE BEAUFOY 


HOW BEAUFOY WENT A-WOOING 

Raimond de Beaufoy, hereditary Suzerain of 
the fief of that name, had at three-and-twenty 
little cause to quarrel with the world. As for 
the world, or that portion of it which lay in 
touch with the borders of Beaufoy, when it was 
in quarrelling mood it found, time and again, 
that the young Seigneur had a hard hand, a 
strong arm, and a long reach — three things 
which make mightily for tranquillity. It there- 
fore came about that the Seigneurie enjoyed a 
larger peace than its weaker neighbours. 

Peace was much. Peace was internal growth 
and consolidation, but to peace were added 
wealth — as wealth went in that year of little 
grace and great famine, 1438 — health, strength, 
and power. For hard on a score of miles in 
one direction, and well-nigh as many at right 


8 


THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


angles, so as roughly to form a square, Raimond 
de Beaufoy was lord of life and death. A 
dozen villages called him master. His corn- 
fields filled the valleys and his vineyards covered 
the southern slopes. To crown all, his Chateau 
of Beaufoy, with its great girdle of gray walls, 
was victualled and garrisoned as became the 
house of a man who ruled by love or terror as 
the mood took him. 

Left an orphan when a twelve months’ babe, 
the child’s inheritance had been nursed by his 
uncle, Bertrand de Freyne, as if it were his 
own, as, indeed, he designed it to be ; but 
Death having said a brusque ‘ No ’ to Bertrand’s 
project, the young heir gathered the fruits of 
the elder’s labours, while the whole suzerainty 
chanted its Te Deum. Bertrand de Freyne 
had been a hard man. 

It is the man who already has his hands full 
of this world’s blessings that looks abroad to 
add one to their number, and so Raimond de 
Beaufoy gave himself much thought as to 
whence he would bring a wife home to the 
Seigneurie. Birth she must have ; generations 
to match his own. Youth and health she must 
have ; for the descent of the line was as much 
a sacred trust as the transmission of the fat 
acres undiminished. Of what use to leave his 


HOW BEAUFOY WENT A-WOOING 9 


heir his four hundred of square miles, if he 
had not wit and strength to rule them ? Acres 
of her own were desirable, not essential, for 
Beaufoy was a healthy-minded man, and set no 
great value on wealth that was not his own ; 
not essential — no, but a weight in the scale. 
Temper, good looks, the domestic virtues, 
these he set no store upon. For the first, if it 
was bad he would cure it ; for the second, he 
lived much abroad ; for the third, if she knew 
little of the care of a great house, there were 
those who did to be had for the hiring. So for 
many weeks he weighed and measured the 
damsels of Angoumois, and in the end he 
pitched upon Denise de Vaucourt. 

A week past he had come to this conclusion, 
and now, as he rode across the summer fields 
with Marmontel, his squire, at his elbow — for 
seven generations there had not lacked a 
Marmontel to serve a Beaufoy — he was con- 
firmed in the wisdom of his decision. 

When three-and- twenty plumes himself upon 
his wisdom, you may be sure that not the lever 
of Archimedes — could it be mentally applied — 
would stir him a hair s-breadth. But in this 
instance Wisdom was justified of its child. 

' A day's ride there,' said he to Marmontel ; 
‘ it will be that at least with a pack-horse hang- 


lo THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


ing behind. Four days at Vaucourt, or three 
may be — no need to waste a man’s time over 
such work — and a day home. The week 
should see us back at Beaufoy.’ 

‘Three days,’ answered Marmontel cautiously, 
‘ is but scant time to win a maid’s fancy.’ 

‘ Chut!’ and Beaufoy broadened his shoulders, 
‘ we met once before, seven years ago, I think, 
and if the girl be won the fancy will follow 
after — or bide away as it lists. The thing fits 
well, Marmontel. Away to the south there, 
Vaucourt marches with Beaufoy for a full three 
miles, and that there is neither father nor 
brother to poke fingers into Beaufoy’s business 
counts for much.’ 

‘ I have seen three towns taken by surprise,’ 
said Marmontel, ‘ but never one woman. The 
jades love a siege, and if they be honest they 
get it but once in their lives.’ 

‘Nor is there surprise here,’ answered 
Beaufoy. ‘ Why, man, Roger has been at 
Vaucourt these eighteen hours, and if Madame 
the Countess guesses not the meaning of my 
message, then Denise comes of a dull stock. 
Am I the man to fling away five days on 
nothing more than a woman’s chatter i*’ 

‘ She may guess, and Mademoiselle may 
guess — but. Seigneur,’ persisted Marmontel, out 


HOW BEAUFOY WENT A- WOOING ii 


of his fifteen years’ longer experience of life, 
‘ there are forms.’ 

‘ Chut ! Beaufoy will balance the forms,’ 
and the Seigneur laughed. ‘ This is no match 
of Bet of the charcoal furnace with Peter the 
herdsman. If Madame be pleased and if I 
be pleased, the thing’s done. Hold thou thy 
peace with thy forms.’ 

‘ There is little to choose between Bet or 
Denise, seeing they have, by your leave, 
women’s hearts in them,’ answered Marmontel ; 
‘and if it be the land alone she is after, then 
God help Beaufoy, man and acres !’ 

‘ Did I not tell thee, man, to hold thy peace ? 
I can see to myself and my acres, too !’ And 
grumbling to himself, Marmontel, like a good 
servant, did as he was bid. 

The road to Vaucourt was across the Suze- 
rainty, through the broad girdle of forest that 
framed its fatness on every side, and into a 
broken country where thicket and pasture- 
land fought hard for the pre-eminence — a poorer 
country than Beaufoy, and one that showed 
clear signs of a loose rule. Here was a herd’s 
cottage, blackened and unroofed, there a 
haggard in gray heaps of sodden ashes, or a 
mill with the wheel splintered and great stone 
blocks thrust beneath its floats in sheer wan- 


12 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


tonness. That the masterless men who found 
harbour in the wood preyed as they listed on 
Vaucourt was plain to be seen. Beaufoy, by 
reason of its many hangings, they left un- 
harmed. 

‘ By the Lord, Marmontel !’ cried the 
Seigneur wrathfully, as they reined up abreast 
of a still smoking desolation, ‘ these rogues 
have sore need of a heavy hand, and a heavy 
hand they shall feel. There will be changed 
times at Vaucourt when Beaufoy grips the 
reins! Shall we hunt the rascals to-morrow, 
just to give them a foretaste of what’s to 
come ? 

‘ Best hunt the damsel. Seigneur,’ answered 
Marmontel. ‘ Rogues are plenty and ripe for 
the hanging any day ; a damsel is but one, and 
must be caught when the will moves her.’ 

‘ Wrong I’ said Beaufoy, shaking up his 
horse, ‘ wrong ! ’Tis the other way round ; 
but let us get forward in daylight, lest the 
rope find the wrong men. What a Te diavolum 
laudamus they would raise if they laid hands 
on Raimond de Beaufoy !’ 

It was on the edge of dusk when the 
Seigneur rode up the slope and into the glade 
where stood the Castle of Vaucourt, a pile less 
ancient and less massive than Beaufoy, but 


HOW BEAUFOY WENT A-WOOING 13 


lichened and mossy with age. It fronted south, 
with a semicircle of open space, some six 
hundred yards radius, on three sides, while 
behind, a long bowshot off and sheltering it 
from the north, stretched a dense thicket of 
pines, oaks, and underbrush. A flight of seven 
short steps, unguarded by any balustrade, led 
up to the heavy Norman doorway, with its 
rounded columns set half within the wall. 

There they were awaited by a man apparently 
of Beaufoy’s own age, who, as the Seigneur 
checked his gallop before the door, came down 
to meet them, and, stretching out his hand, 
caught the bridle. 

‘ Give you good-evening. Master Seneschal,’ 
cried Beaufoy, flinging down his reins. ‘ By 
St. Francis, thou art young for a major domo. 
Surely a grayer wit would better match a service 
hat hath no head but a woman.’ 

‘That I am Madame de Vaucourt’s humble 
servant is true,’ answered the other, ‘ and in 
these times youth is a pear that soon mellows.’ 
He slipped the bridle over his right arm, and 
turned towards the door. ‘ Here, two of you, 
see to the beasts ; and you. Seigneur, have come, 
like the welcome guest you are, in the nick of 
time.’ 

‘ Marmontel ’ — and Beaufoy paused as he dis- 


14 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 

mounted, his weight swung upon one stirrup — 
‘see thou to the beasts’ housing. No offence, 
Master Seneschal. Beaufoy might go seigneur- 
less, all for a horse’s colic. Now, man, what of 
thy mistress 

‘ That she is in trouble, holds council, and is 
in need of thy gray wisdom.’ 

‘ Hark, thou !’ — and Beaufoy tapped the other 
on the shoulder. ‘ Keep thees and thous for 
thy fellows, lest thou tastest leather. What is 
thy name ?’ 

‘ Mark de Vaucourt ; at your service. Seig- 
neur de Beaufoy,’ answered the other, laughing. 

'What? Madame’s nephew? Was this a 
jest, Messire de Vaucourt ?’ 

‘ No jest, Seigneur de Beaufoy ; and if your 
gray wit failed to discern between a lackey and 
a gentleman ’ 

‘ Right ’ — and Beaufoy, pausing in his walk, 
looked him full in the face — ‘ right : my wit 
failed to discern. What then 

‘ Spare your impertinence. Seigneur de 
Beaufoy ; I understand you well enough. To 
be frank, we have already a cause of quarrel 
within the walls, but the lady’s name is best 
kept out of the business. Is that plain i*’ 

‘ Sits the bird on that tree ? N ow I see the 
point of the jest ; but no man makes Beatifoy 


HOW BEAUFOY WENT A-WOOING 15 


twice a laughing-stock — no, by St. Francis, not 
twice ! Let us settle the matter, Messire de 
V aucourt.’ 

‘ Make no doubt we shall settle it. Seigneur 
de Beaufoy, but not to-day nor to-morrow. As 
I told you, the Countess is in trouble, and has 
need of us both. First, shoulder to shoulder 
for Vaucourt’s sake, then face to face for our 
own.’ 

They had reached the centre of the great 
square hall, having paused at intervals in their 
wrangling, and now Beaufoy, from his two 
inches of greater height, looked frowningly on 
the other. It was a new thing to him to be 
belittled, or even to be claimed as an equal, 
and his pride was in arms. 

‘ H’m ! is this some new jest ? For, by the 
Lord, Messire, I give you fair warning ’ 

‘ No jest, but sober earnest. Here it is in a 
nutshell, and if there is a jest, the laugh is on 
the sorrowful side of the mouth. C^sar Vigogne 
has debts ; Cesar Vigogne has also a son, and 
he proposes, with much insistence and a thin 
veneer of courtesy, that his son shall pay his 
debts by taking to himself the lands of Vau- 
court with Mademoiselle Denise, since he 
cannot, in reason, seek the one without the 
other.’ 


1 6 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


‘ C6sar Vigogne ?’ said the Seigneur. ‘ I 
know the rascal. A suave bully, he will bless 
you with all unctuousness, and cut your throat 
as ‘Amen’ to the benediction. Cdsar Vigogne ! 
Beaufoy’s men will settle his insistence once 
and for all.’ 

‘ Beaufoy’s men will have small chance,’ 
answered Vaucourt. ‘C6sar Vigogne is four 
hours behind his messenger, and brings his 
priest with him.’ 

‘ And how long since ’ 

‘ Three hours, maybe, or a little more.’ 

‘ Then we are caught like rats in a trap ? 
To think there are two score of men rusting at 
Beaufoy, and we pent up to starve in a hole! 
Send me Marmontel. Though he risk hanging 
in his own reins, he must ride for Beaufoy 
within the hour. In a day, or a day and a 
half, we shall snap our fingers at C6sar 
Vigogne.’ 

‘In a day, or a day and a half,’ answered 
Mark de Vaucourt, ‘ neither you nor I will have 
fingers to snap. It’s odds that your squire will 
do us better service here than charging pell- 
mell through the black of the woods.’ 

‘Is Vaucourt so weak as that? Then, by 
St. Francis, we’re shent! Let us to the 
Countess, Messire, and here’s my hand on it ; 


HOW BEAUFOY WENT A-WOOING 17 


we are brother and brother until we have found 
God’s mercy in this world or the next.’ 

‘ Brother and brother, Seigneur,’ answered 
the other, taking frankly the outstretched hand 
so frankly offered ; ‘ and, from my soul, I 
believe we have sore need that the mercy be 
not stinted.’ 

From the back of the great hall three 
passage-ways opened — one to right, one to left, 
and a third facing the entrance. Down one of 
these — that to the left — Vaucourt led the way, 
with the Seigneur at his heels, and clanging 
his long, huge - rowelled spurs as he walked. 
Pausing at a door, across which there fell a 
heavy curtain, Mark turned and laid his hand 
on the other^s arm. 

‘ Be brief in counsel, that we may be ready in 
action,’ he said ; ‘ and, indeed, there is but one 
course open — to hold Vaucourt to the last.’ 
Then he flung open the door. ‘ The Seigneur 
Raimond de Beaufoy,’ he announced, and drew 
the door hard behind him. 

The room was small, but so ill-lit by its 
narrow, pointed windows, closely barred, that 
the three by the table seemed little better than 
shadows. Of the three, two were women, and 
seated, while the third, a man, stood behind 
their chairs. From his deference of attitude. 


2 


1 8 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


Beaufoy judged him to be present by sufferance 
rather than by right, and the event proved him 
to have been the body-squire of the old Count, 
now many years dead. 

As Vaucourt spoke, the two rose, and the 
elder answered : 

‘ The Seigneur comes in a happy hour for 
us, but an evil for himself. If there were time, 
Messire de Beaufoy, I would say, ride hence 
until a day when peace and Vaucourt are better 
friends.’ 

‘ No, Madame ’ — and Beaufoy went forward 
to meet the Countess. ‘ Rather the best of 
hours for me, since, by the grace of God, I will 
prove that my love for Vaucourt is no courtesy 
love.’ 

‘ Truly a sturdy growth for so young a plant. 
Mushrooms have no long life,’ said Mademoi- 
selle Denise under her breath, but with a strain 
of mocking in her voice. 

‘ Sturdy and speedy is Beaufoy all over,’ 
answered the Seigneur, ‘ and, with the help of 
St. Francis, you yourself will say so within six- 
and- thirty hours. Madame, let us leave com- 
pliments aside and come to profitable talk ; 
Messire de Vaucourt has told me of the insult 
thrust upon you by C^sar Vigogne. To answer 
that is no woman’s work, and, with your leave. 


HOW BEAUFOY WENT A-WOOING 19 


we two will take upon our shoulders the form 
and method of reply.’ 

‘ We have no right, Seigneur de Beaufoy ’ 

began the Countess, but the Seigneur, guessing 
what she would say, stopped her with a gesture. 

‘You have a double right, Madame: one, 
the common right of every woman to be de- 
fended against the violence of a scoundrel ; the 

other ’ And he bowed to Mademoiselle 

Denise. ‘ But for the present we will let the 
other stand ; that is the agreement, is it not, 
Messire de Vaucourt ?’ 

‘ Let C^sar Vigogne set foot inside the castle, 
and there is an end to rights and to defences 
also. All the talk in the world will not change 
that. For the Lord’s sake, let us get to work.’ 

‘ My thought, too, Messire. With your 
leave, Madame, our old friend in the corner — 
who, I doubt not, knows every nook and hole 
in the castle — and we two will make a round 
of inspection. Be at ease. Mademoiselle ; if 
there is a bridal at Vaucourt this night, I pro- 
mise you, faith of a gentleman, the priest will 
have light enough to read his book by and 
witnesses in plenty, though they be dumb ones.’ 

With which strange comfort Beaufoy led the 
way back to the corridor. 

The circuit of the house disclosed more than 

2 — 2 


20 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


one point of weakness ; but chiefly Mark de 
Vaucourt was troubled by a passage-way, which, 
opening from the back of the great hall, passed 
through the cellars, tunnelled the earth for a 
furlong northwards, and had its outlet in the 
underbrush of the sheltering belt of timber. 
That the outlet was so well concealed that a 
hunter with a leash of hounds might have 
passed it by was but a half-comfort, since, if it 
were once discovered, nothing but an inch-thick 
oak door, midway along the tunnel, blocked the 
approach. 

‘ Let Vigogne put a petard under it,’ said he, 
‘ and it flies to splinters in a snap.’ 

‘ If Vigogne has petards to spare, he’ll win 
Vaucourt by a shorter road than this,’ answered 
Beaufoy, ‘No, no ; he will try the great door, 
as a gentleman should, and let the worst come, 
it will go hard with us if we cannot hold the 
hall for thirty minutes while the women find 
safety, and by this road. Let it bide as it is, 
say I ; but. Master Squire, have spades and 
mattocks down here, and hands to work them. 
Why, I will tell you presently. Now, De 
Vaucourt, let us back to Madame.’ 

The women they found waiting them at the 
head of the corridor. 

‘ Thus and thus is the plan,’ said Beaufoy, 


HOW BEAUFOY WENT A-WOOING 21 


giving Mark no time to speak. Lead he would, 
for all that he was but a stranger and a guest. 
‘ We are ten men, all told. Enough to hold 
Vaucourt for a week if there was no such 
thing as saltpetre in the world and but one 
flaw in the defence. But, what with a rotten 
window here and a tottering door there, not 
Talbot himself could hold the place, weak- 
handed as we are. Two are wanted by the 
windows, where the bars are thinner than 
makes for comfort ; one by the east door — 
friend Hugues here will do ; four with me at 
the secret outlet.’ 

‘You take good care of yourself, Messire de 
Beaufoy.’ 

‘ By Saint Francis, Mademoiselle Denise, 
for myself I care no whit ; but I make the best 
of the chances, and bad they are at the best. 
C6sar Vigogne, I hear, has thirty men at his 
back.’ 

‘ Then you think, Seigneur * 

‘ I think, Madame — to be blunt is kindest — 
that if C6sar Vigogne does not grudge us six 
feet of Vaucourt land, his priest may have 
other work than marrying to do before the 
sun’s at noon.’ 

At which Mademoiselle Denise turned to 
De Vaucourt and caught him by both hands. 


22 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


‘ Mark, Mark, and it is my fault thou art 
here !’ 

Whereupon Beaufoy laughed a hard laugh. 

‘ And I,’ he said. ‘ What of me ?’ 

‘ Mark came for love’s sake, Messire,’ an- 
swered she across her shoulder ; ‘ but you, you 
know best why yourself’ 

Through the silence that followed Beaufoy’s 
ear caught the patter of hoofs on the turf then 
came a jingle of bridle-chains, the stumble of 
feet on the steps, and three resounding blows 
struck with a stout riding-whip on the panels 
of the door, and with such a vigour that the 
hollow of the great hall echoed. Again Beaufoy 
played the master. Brushing all pretences 
aside, he went straight to the point. 

‘ So you have come, C^sar Vigogne, and, 
having come, had best ride home again, lest 
you raise such a hive about your ears as has 
never yet buzzed in all Angoumois.’ 

‘ God’s mercy ! here’s a knot on the cord !’ 
they heard him exclaim. Then, louder : ‘ Open, 
fellow ! I have knocked once, who am not wont 
to knock twice in courtesy.’ 

‘ The courtesy of C^sar Vigogne !’ — and 
Beaufoy laughed. ‘ The courtesies of the seven 
hangings of Marvaulx ! the courtesies of the 
wreck and burning of Neuchamp! By St. 


HOW BEAUFOY WENT A-WOOING 23 


Francis of Beaufoy, a closed door is more 
wholesome at this time of night! Are you 
answered with your courtesies ?’ 

‘ Beaufoy I Beaufoy I’ cried Vigogne, stamp- 
ing his foot. ‘ What the plague does Beaufoy 
here ?’ 

‘ Ay,’ answered the other. ‘ Beaufoy I 
Beaufoy I Buzz I buzz ! do you hear the 
hornets, C^sar Vigogne ?’ 

There was a silence, and when Vigogne 
spoke again it was in a changed tone. 

‘ Listen, Seigneur 1 With you I have no 
quarrel, nor, indeed, with anyone in Vaucourt ; 
but I have come for a certain thing, and, by 
the saints, that thing I will do ! Six years ago 
De Vaucourt pledged his daughter to my son 
Jacques, and ’ 

‘ It is a lie I’ answered Beaufoy. * Quit lies 
and come to the truth.’ 

‘ It is true,’ replied C^sar Vigogne ; ‘so true 
that none can contradict it. Yet, leave that 
aside. My point is this : Marry Denise to 
Jacques I will 1’ 

‘ Mademoiselle de Vaucourt is pledged to a 
gentleman now in the castle,’ said Beaufoy 
coolly. Dropping his voice, he turned to the 
others as they stared at him, and went on : 
‘By the Lord, it’s true! For what else are 


24 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


Vaucourt and I here ? Whether it be to me or 
Messire Mark, Mademoiselle Denise is as good 
as pledged, and whichever wins, God help the 
man who comes between us !’ Then louder : 
‘ Are you answered, Messire ?’ 

‘ Leave pledges to me,’ replied Vigogne 
bluntly. ‘ Marry Denise to Jacques I will ! 
That is Vaucourt’s affair, and not Beaufoy’s. 
Ride home in peace, Seigneur ; with you I 
have no quarrel.’ 

‘ Hist!’ said Beaufoy, going to the door and 
bending so that his lips touched the crack by 
the post. ‘Hist I speak lower. Is there a 
trap in this ?’ 

‘ No trap, but clear sense for me and for 
you. Am I a fool to bring the Seigneurie 
about my ears for nought, or you a fool to 
risk — tush 1 there is no risk ; the thing’s a 
certainty — to risk, I say, your life for another’s 
gain ?’ 

For a moment Beaufoy stood rubbing his 
chin, as was his fashion when in deep thought, 
then he said : 

‘ If a man could save his honour ’ and 

stopped. 

‘There is no haste,’ cried the other softly. 
* Take till midnight, and ride off in quiet. 
There is always the secret passage.’ 


HOW BEAUFOY WENT A- WOOING 25 


‘What? Speak lower still, man. You 
know that way ?’ 

‘ Ay, I know it ; a twist of the crow and the 
door is open, and tell me this — what chance 
has Vaucourt? But I will smooth your way 
and salve your honour. Listen, Beaufoy ; I 
pledge you this : no soul in Vaucourt shall cry 
“Shame!” upon you ever after. Hal you 
understand. What the grave hides is well 
hidden.’ 

‘ But I have three men ; I must save them !’ 

‘ And welcome ; the fewer for me. Till 
midnight, then ; and, Beaufoy, tell Madame, my 
mother that is to be, that you have bought me 
off. There will be the worse watch.’ 

‘ Till midnight,’ answered Beaufoy softly, 
and straightening himself, he stood listening 
to the iron heels of Cesar Vigogne clanking 
down the steps. Then he turned to the group 
at the farther end of the hall, and turned to 
meet a tempest. ‘ By St. Francis !’ he cried 
in no polite mood, ‘ are you all gone mad that 
you bay at me like so many dogs ? Here does 
Cdsar Vigogne of his folly give us three hours’ 
grace, and because I take them you call me 
coward and traitor! Let the event speak, 
Madame; and as for you, Hugues, thrust that 
blade home again till nearer cock-crowing, De 


26 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


Vaucourt, surely you understand ? Ay, well, 
now listen : Madame and Mademoiselle, do as 
you will about your beds, but let the lights go 
out as if Vigogne and his rogues were fighting 
the English — as I would to the Lord they 
were, instead of beleaguering honest French 
folk — then, in the dark, and softly, barricade 
the doors and windows open to attack ; let this 
be your work, De Vaucourt. Hugues, do you 
send three men after me to the secret passage ; 
my business lies there.’ 

‘ Seigneur de Beaufoy, be generous and give 
us your pardon,’ began Madame. ‘ It was our 
ignorance.’ 

‘ The fault was mine,’ interrupted Beaufoy ; 
‘ how should you fathom a man’s duplicity ?’ 

‘ But, Seigneur,’ cried Mademoiselle, * is 
there nought that we could do ? Believe me, 
we could not rest.’ 

* Why, yes ; make me some twelve feet of a 
linen pipe of half the thickness of a little finger, 
only, for the Lord’s sake, let the windows be 
dark. Now, my friend, my three fellows and 
their tools.’ 

Snatching a lamp from the table, he turned 
into the passage-way leading to the secret 
outlet, and strode down it with such a heavy 
tread that they could hear his heels ringing and 


HOW BEAUFOY WENT A-WOOING 27 


echoing in the long hollow of the vault. Then 
the trampling ceased, and in its place there 
came the screeching complaint of the oak- 
door creaking unwillingly back on its rusty 
hinges. 

‘A masterful man,’ said Madame. 

‘ A masterful man,’ echoed Mark de Vau- 
court ; ‘ for that I owe him no grudge.’ Then 
he added, looking at Denise : ‘ I would we had 
nineteen more like him, and were well rid of 
the score in twelve hours.’ 

Whereupon Mademoiselle laughed. 

‘ It is not enough,’ said she, ‘ for a man to be 
masterful ; and if Cdsar Vigogne permits, the 
riddance will come smoothly enough ’ — and the 
fire on her cheeks found an answer in his 
eyes. 

Meanwhile, De Beaufoy had his three men 
hard at work. 

‘ A crow- point under this flag — gently, 
gently! No need to chip the edge. Now, 
two mattocks at this end and that, and heave I 
Saints 1 men ; have you brawn in your backs, 
or the basting of fatted calves? Heave, I say, 
heave! So — that is better! Now this one — 
good, good ! Now another, and yet one more! 
Four ? That will do for the surface.’ 

They were working ten feet beyond the 


28 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


oak-door, and, under Beaufoy’s orders, had 
stripped the passage of its heavy flagging in 
a direction inwards towards the castle, rearing 
the heavy slabs in lines along the wall. 

‘ N ow, mattocks and shovels ; two of you 
work, and one rest. Faith ! how the soil grips ! 
What’s that — a stone ? Good ! Have it within 
the door ; its use will come presently. Stay ! run 
you and crave from Madame a blanket or sheet, 
or some such thing. Meanwhile, dig on, you 
two, and with a will ; our time is shorter than 
agrees with comfort. Ay, that will do. Shovel 
out the dirt upon that, and busily — busily. Do 
you pick out the stones and pile them apart. 
Thank the Lord there is no lack of them ! 
Now work, and for your lives!’ 

When the pit was some four or five feet 
down, Beaufoy stopped the sinking, and bade 
them drive the shaft not alone downwards, but 
outwards, until he judged it suited his purpose. 
Then he told them curtly they might rest, and 
he himself went to seek Hugues the Squire. 

‘Give me,’ said he, ‘a stout box, a pot of 
pitch, a brush, and cannon powder. I will set 
such a fougasse for these rogues as will teach 
them much of the art of war if they but come 
that way, and live to tell of it, which I doubt. 
The piping, Madame. By St. Francis I’ — and 


HOW BEAUFOY WENT A-WOOING 29 


he held it up in a coil — ‘a snake, a veritable 
snake, and one that shall hiss and bite, or my 
name is not Raimond de Beaufoy !’ 

With his own hands he smeared the box 
inside with pitch, and filling it to the edge with 
the gray explosive, he placed it carefully in 
position. Then, having given his serpent a full 
feeding, he fixed the end of the fuse in the 
powder and built it into its place with loose 
stones, which he very carefully set in order 
until the bulk and weight satisfied him. 

‘ Now earth, and stamp it down well — so. 
Drag the cloth and what remains over, inside 
the door, and set the flags in place. Good ! a 
fair craftsmanlike piece of work. Presently 
they will sink, but, faith of Beaufoy, they will 
lie even long enough to fool C6sar Vigogne.’ 

Scraping aside the clay from the extreme 
edge of the flagging, he carefully buried the 
linen fuse, bringing the end up inside the oak 
door. This he closed and bolted, and then 
returned to the hall of the castle. The lamp 
he left behind him, but so placed that the door 
lay in shadow. 

The hall he found a groping darkness, with 
just enough of life whispering down the dim 
corridors to set the nerves tingling, but that 
nerves and Beaufoy had little acquaintance. 


30 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


Against the door lay a great heap of tables, 
armoires, and such-like furnishings. 

Presently he found Mark de Vaucourt. 

‘ Give me two stools and a dice-box,’ said 
Beaufoy. ‘ Needs must that I keep awake by 
hook or crook. If C6sar Vigogne comes scratch- 
ing on the panels presently, or calling softly, as 
belike he may, let him scratch and call, but for 
the Lord’s sake give no sign of life. The dice ? 
Ay, now the stools. So — that promises well. 
As you go your rounds, Messire, do not forget 
Beaufoy down in the cellars.’ 

Tucking the stools one under each arm, he 
disappeared into the black vault of the passage, 
but with so light a tread that not Cdsar Vigogne 
himself, had he had his ear to the keyhole, would 
have heard a stir of life. 

An hour later and what the Seigneur had 
forecast came to pass. There was a stealthy 
shuffle of feet on the stone steps, a stumble in 
the darkness, and a muttered curse, and then a 
silence, and after the silence a thin tattoo of 
finger-nails on the door, followed by a muffled 
voice — ‘ Beaufoy !’ thrice repeated, each time 
with a rising note — ‘ Beaufoy ! Beaufoy ! Beau- 
foy !’ Then again the stealthy shuffle of feet, 
and the watchers in the upper windows saw 
the waiting troop draw off to the south until 


HOW BEAUFOY WENT A-WOOING 31 


it was lost in the night. Then Mark de 
Vaucourt went to seek the Seigneur. 

Beaufoy he found seated on one of the stools, 
with his back to the door, his legs thrust out 
before him, the second stool between his knees, 
and busy throwing dice upon its top, alternately 
left hand against right. At the sound of Vau- 
court’s footsteps he set down the box and 
looked up. 

‘ Well r 

‘ Vigogne has ridden off to the south.’ 

‘ Then he will come back by way of the 
north. 1 know the feeble cunning of his kind.’ 

Dropping his chin upon his hand, he rubbed 
it softly ; then, reaching out, he took up the dice- 
box again, and let fall the dice into it slowly. 

‘ Cold steel,’ he said, out of the thought that 
was in both their minds, ‘ will go cruelly hard 
against the grain after this night’s brotherhood ; 
and, to tell the truth, there is no woman in the 
world good enough for men to split friendship 
because of her.’ 

‘ Then give her up,’ answered Vaucourt, 
‘ and let us be brother and brother to the end. 
Plainly she has no wish for Beaufoy.’ 

But the Seigneur shook his head. 

‘ Plague take it !’ said he. ‘ There is such a 
thing as a man’s dignity. As for wishes, what 


32 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


are they in a woman ? Nought !’ and he 
snapped his fingers. ‘ Listen,’ he went on, ‘ I 
will play you for her. Dice-boxes instead of a 
puddle of blood ; and, besides, the time hangs 
plaguey heavy.’ 

‘ Are you mad ?’ cried Vaucourt. ‘ Why, 
man, I have loved Denise since I knew what 
love was.’ 

‘ Faith !’ — and Beaufoy laughed. ‘ I might say 
the same, and never know the throb of a pulse.’ 

‘ Then give her up !’ cried the other again. 
‘ For, Beaufoy, Denise ’ And he stopped. 

‘ Ay,’ answered Beaufoy, ‘ and had I known 
that thirty-six hours ago, I had not been sitting 
here now waiting to play a sharper game with 
Cesar Vigogne than dice on a stool-top ; but, 
being here, I must carry the thing through. I 
catch your meaning. You love her, and she 
you ; and to dice for her would be sacrilege for 
you as for me to dice for Beaufoy. Ay, I see 
that ; but to me who neither love nor am loved 
it is the fairest of games. By St. Francis! I 
have it! I will play left hand against right 
for her, and on the honour of Beaufoy, if I 
lose, I make my bow at sunrise, C6sar Vigogne 
permitting.’ 

‘ And if you win ?’ 

‘ If I win ’ — and with his open palm he smote 


HOW BEAUFOY WENT A-WOOING 33 


the stool in front of him — ‘ then win her I shall, 
though all Vaucourt came between. Let me 
see : the left — ay, that is you ; it is nearer the 
heart. A pretty conceit, faith ! I give you 
first throw, Messire. My word ! but I hope 
Cesar Vigogne will be gallant enough to hold 
his hand until the game is played.’ Taking the 
dice-box in his left finger-tips, he raised it above 
his head, shaking it, and reversed it on the 
stool. ‘Ace, tray. Faith, a poor throw! 
Now, then ; right hand for Beaufoy, Cinq, 
quatre. I lead you, Messire — I lead you I 
Throw, Vaucourt, throw ; ’tis the best of three. 
Tray, quatre. Eleven to nine, and a throw in 
hand. Deuce, quatre. It is well, Messire, that 
you are here to bear witness that it is an honest 
game. Your last throw, Vaucourt, and a noble 
one. Double six ; ’tis a lead, indeed. Now, 
St. Francis, for Beaufoy.’ 

With the box poised in the air, he paused, 
listening. ‘ Nothing ? I thought it had been 
Cdsar Vigogne.’ Down came the box with a 
rattle. ‘ T ray, six ; Beaufoy wins by a point. 
Welcome to my poor house that shall be, 
Messire de Vaucourt!’ 

‘ Do you think,’ said Vaucourt fiercely, grasp- 
ing the Seigneur by the shoulder and shaking 
him — ‘ do you think I hold myself bound by 

3 


34 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


such a mummer’s chance as that ? No — by 
God, no!’ 

‘ Keep your hands for C^sar Vigogne, Mes- 
sire,’ answered Beaufoy. ‘ For me the thing is 
settled. If you wish to fight it out in another 

fashion, why Ha, saints I what is that .■* 

The assault is on in front ; though if Vigogne 
thinks to batter in the doors, he must swing a 
heavier sledge than that. Come, man, come !’ 

Leaping to his feet, Beaufoy sped up the 
passage, grasping at his sword-hilt as he ran. 
Five paces behind him was Mark de Vaucourt ; 
but midway he stopped and waited, listening, 
then turned back. From behind came the 
sharp scream of dry timber, ripped and splin- 
tered, and as he watched he saw, in the dull 
flicker of the lamp, the door heave. 

‘ A feint I a feint 1’ he cried. ‘ Rouse them 
in the castle, and then this way. Seigneur ; the 
attack lies here I’ — and rushed headlong down 
the tunnel. 

At the cry Beaufoy paused, and, stooping, 
he saw Vaucourt seize the lamp and hold it to 
the fuse, and there was a spurt of flame. 

‘ Run ! for the Lord’s sake, run !’ he shouted. 

But Vaucourt, still holding the lamp, bent 
forward motionless. There was an instant’s 
silence, a rumble, the bulging of the oak door. 


HOW BEAUFOY WENT A-WOOING 35 


a rush of gray smoke, and utter darkness, and 
through the darkness a roar and crash that sent 
Beaufoy staggering to the wall. 

‘ Mother of God !’ cried a voice behind him ; 
‘ what has befallen ?’ 

Looking behind him he saw Denise, a rush- 
light flickering in her hand. 

‘You, Messire de Beaufoy? — you? Then, 
where is Mark ? Coward !’ she cried — ‘ coward 
to leave your post ! — coward !’ And as she ran 
past him into the darkness she smote him with 
her open hand upon the face. 

Still stooping, Beaufoy saw her set the light 
upon the floor and draw a something from the 
wreck of fallen earth, saw her sink upon her 
knees and lay Mark de Vaucourt’s head upon 
her lap. Then he set his teeth hard and sought 
Marmontel. 

‘ C6sar Vigogne is paid in full,’ said he, ‘ but 
I have enough of wife-hunting for this time. 
Let Mademoiselle Denise cleave to her fraction 
of a man, for, by St. Francis, he can be little 
more !’ 

Nevertheless, in the long day’s ride to 
Beaufoy, the Squire had wit enough to keep a 
silent tongue, lest the debt due by the woman 
should be levied off the man. 


3—2 


II 


BEAUFOY’S WARD 

It is no great thing that an honest-hearted 
gentleman should forgive an injury. That he 
should not only pardon scorn and contempt, 
but be ready to set his life at stake for his 
contemner, is much more marvellous ; since a 
sword-thrust for the body counts less than a 
pin-prick to the spirit. Yet this, for all his 
pride, did Raimond de Beaufoy. 

That the scorn was a woman’s scorn turns it 
still more to his credit ; for a man can measure 
himself with a man, and give and take blows 
which presently heal and are forgotten, whereas 
a woman’s contempt is as a whip-stroke on the 
face that leaves a weal, the stinging heat of 
which keeps it well in memory. 

The day Beaufoy rode from Vaucourt his 
heart had been hot and wrathful. When 
Denise de Vaucourt nursed her maimed cousin 
Mark back to life, and married him for all his 
battering, Beaufoy still treasured his anger ; 


BEAUFOY’S WARD 


37 


but with the slipping away of the months 
and his busy life here and there, its fierceness 
deadened. After all, he was Raimond de 
Beaufoy, and the other no more than Mark de 
Vaucourt. If a foolish woman chose to fling 
what she called love into Vaucourt’s scale as a 
make-weight, and cozen herself into thinking 
she had the best of the bargain, it showed she 
did not appreciate the possibilities, and so was 
no fit mistress for Beaufoy. Passion of that 
sort — passion that set lightly by the Suzerainty 
— would play havoc with the fame and powei 
of Beaufoy. So, as his wrath cooled, he found 
himself not alone well rid of the woman, but 
with a kind of comfortable gratitude to Mark 
de Vaucourt. 

Indeed, so well was the affront of his rejec- 
tion forgiven that he was now, four years after 
his heart-burnings, straining every power and 
energy Beaufoy possessed to succour his old 
rival. 

What had befallen Mark de Vaucourt was 
the sure fate of the man who thrusts out his 
arm farther than he can draw it back. Bitten 
with an indiscreet zeal to ape the stern justice 
of his more powerful neighbour, he set himself 
a task beyond his strength — the task of clearing 
out the brigands, free-riders, and the like from 


38 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


the woods and fastnesses that bordered on 
Vaucourt. Beaufoy’s hinds and herdsmen lived 
in peace, why not Vaucourt’s ? So, with com- 
mendable enthusiasm, he set himself to a cam- 
paign of sudden death. 

For a time all went well. The wolves he 
hunted dwelt singly or in pairs, rogue not trust- 
ing rogue, and the greater boughs of the oaks * 
of Vaucourt took to themselves cheering, but 
perishable, adornments that swung and turned 
and danced to the piping of the wind. Then 
the inevitable happened. The isolated atoms of 
humanity drew together, as in mercury globule 
draws to globule — not from love, not from trust, 
but from need — and Vaucourt was face to face 
with a coalition that knew not God nor re- 
garded man. 

Much of this Beaufoy knew, but he was not 
the man to poke his fingers into his neighbour’s 
business. The Seigneurie was turbulent enough 
in all conscience, without its master adding to 
his cares by the righting of another man’s 
follies. A direct cry for help was another 
matter. If lord did not stand by lord, why, 
there was an end to sieurs and seigneurs ; be- 
sides, had not Mark de Vaucourt saved him 
from saddling Beaufoy with a fool as mistress, 
and so made him his debtor ? 


BEAUFOY’S WARD 


39 


He was sitting by a small table under the 
great Beaufoy oak that grows to the south of 
the chiteau and shades the Justice-room, when 
Vaucourt’s messenger, his beast staggering and 
crisp with sweat that had foamed and dried 
three times in the wild ride, flung himself from 
the saddle and stammered out his news. 

‘ Softly,’ said Beaufoy, setting down the 
lance-head he was polishing ; ‘ a word at a' time 
tells much. Whose man art thou ? Messire 
de Vaucourt’s ? So, so. And what plague has 
taken Vaucourt ?’ 

‘ A plague of men, if they be not devils, 
Seigneur. The castle is beset.’ 

‘ So !’ repeated Beaufoy. ‘ Who leads them ? 
There is a truce with England.’ 

‘ Satan himself, I think,’ answered the man. 
‘ They are forest reivers. Seigneur, and swarm 
like mad bees.’ 

‘ What ! the rogues have dared ? Listen, 
friend, and keep a cool wit. Who sent thee ?’ 

‘ Mark de Vaucourt, Seigneur.’ 

‘ And to me .^’ 

‘ To you. Seigneur, and to ride redspurred, 
though I killed my beast. “ Take another,” 
said he, “ by force or goodwill, but take it and 
ride on. This is life or death.” ’ 

‘ And the message ? Briefly, now.’ 


40 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


‘ For the Lord’s sake, to save Vancourt a 
second time, as you saved it once, for it is 
in a still more evil case.’ 

‘ Ay — and Beaufoy sat back on his stool 
gnawing his under lip. ‘ Much I gained by 
the saving. As for thee, I give thee this much 
credit, friend : thou canst talk straight as well 
as ride straight.’ 

For a full minute he sat rubbing his chin and 
thinking silently, then said : ‘ I have no mind 
for a second fool’s ride.’ 

‘ Seigneur ’ — and in his earnestness the man 
pressed forward and laid his left hand on 
Beaufoy ’s knee — ‘my master is no coward, 
and yet his message was, “It is life or 
death.” ’ 

‘ What ? God’s mercy ! wouldst thou teach 
me my duty, fellow ?’ — and, leaping to his feet, 
the Seigneur thrust him staggering aside. 

‘ Marmontel ! Marmontel! St. Francis! where 
is Marmontel ? Let the tocsin be sounded, 
and the word passed “ boot and saddle ” for all 
save ten men. Go thou, friend, eat, drink, and 
rest thy bones ; though, if I know aught of a 
hard ride, the two last will come easiest, but 
especially the drinking. Marmontel, I give 
you half an hour, and let the men eat standing. 
Leave Flemish Peter in charge, and bid him 


BEAUFOY’S WARD 


41 

trust no living soul till I return. This may be 
a two days’ business.’ 

A prompt man was Raimond de Beaufoy, ill 
to cross, hard to drive, a staunch friend and a 
stern foe. 

It was but little more than noon by the dial 
on the south tower when Beaufoy, with four- 
and-twenty trained men trailing behind him ' in 
two long lines, set out across the autumn 
stubbles. The distance was, perhaps, some 
twenty leagues, but to arrive with blown horses 
and men over-weary for action would have been 
to play the game straight into the rogues’ hands. 
There was, therefore, no great pressure of speed, 
and twice he called a fifteen minutes’ halt for 
rest and baiting. 

So long as the path lay across the domains 
of Beaufoy there was but little need for caution; 
but once beyond the bounds of the Suzerainty 
and within the shadow of the great wood lying 
to the south, the Seigneur bade every man ride 
silent ; yet, for all they heard or saw of life — 
save wild life — they might have sung and 
chattered at will. The men of the woods were 
at Vaucourt. 

Into the Vaucourt pastures they rode at a 
trot, and were soon taught what fate awaited 
the Castle inmates if their relief was late. 


42 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


Even the poorest hut was roofless, the meanest 
cottage a charred ruin, and not once nor twice 
the peasant owner hung from his own lintel. 
He had been fool enough to say ‘No’ with over- 
much vigour. Of women or children they saw 
nothing, save once, nor had they time to search. 
That once sufficed. Men can see men mis- 
handled and keep their phlegm, but when it 
comes to babes and creatures but little less 
helpless, it is another matter. 

‘ Let me but catch the villains ! — Lord God, 
let me but catch them !’ cried Beaufoy between 
his teeth, and rammed his spurs home. ‘ Do 
what Thou wilt to me hereafter. Lord God, but 
give me, I pray Thee, a free hand this day. 
Come, men, we must ride hard, though the 
beasts die for it.’ 

For half an hour they galloped, no man 
speaking, so that the only sound was the 
rhythmic beat of the horse-hoofs on the firm 
turf. Then Beaufoy, who rode first, flung up 
his right hand as a signal, and, tightening his 
reins with a jerk, dropped into a walk. They 
had made a circuit, and the gray front of Vau- 
court showed through a sprinkle of trees. 

At a sign Marmontel ranged up alongside 
the Seigneur. 

‘ Slip off, and go ahead for news. The few 


BEAUFOY’S WARD 


43 


minutes will breathe the beasts, and we must 
not lose the advantage of surprise. Fling me 
your bridle, and make haste.’ 

Without a word Marmontel swung stifBy to 
the ground, gave Beaufoy his reins, and ran 
briskly forward, keeping to the shelter of the 
timber. Inside of ten minutes he was back, 
panting. 

‘It is all too quiet,’ he said. ‘ The great 
door is splintered and oft its hinges, and — and 
— Seigneur, I like not the look of things.’ 

‘ To saddle ! Forward, men !’ said Beaufoy 
curtly ; and silently, but in disorder, they rode 
on. 

All purpose of surprise was gone, and the 
one thought in each man’s mind was to press 
forward, and use his eyes first and his hands 
after. 

While still sixty yards from the flight of 
stone steps, the Seigneur halted and leaped 
down. 

‘ Let five keep the horses. Marmontel, see 
thou to that. The rest follow me,’ he said, and 
set off running full speed across the turf, his 
keen eyes reading signs and reckoning chances 
as he ran. 

Marmontel was right : the door had been 
battered down and then flung out upon the 


44 the beaufoy romances 


grass, that it might not impede entrance. There 
had been a stubborn defence. The wreck of 
the doors and the twisted window-bars testified 
to that. That there was no dead counted for 
nothing, since the rogues in their escape would 
carry their fallen with them ; and that they had 
so escaped was clear, for there was neither 
voice nor stir, nor so much of life as a face at 
the windows. But worse than gaping entrances, 
worse even than the heavy silence, and telling 
plainly of defeat and plunder, were the black 
trails, that in no fewer than three places crept 
up the gray of the walls. Vaucourt had been 
fired, and it was thanks to the haste of the 
victors rather than their goodwill that it had 
escaped destruction. 

At the foot of the steps Beaufoy stopped. 
He would run no reckless risks, for all his 
certainty that the Castle was empty ; but once 
his men had closed in and were at his back he 
ran lightly up, and, with his sword’s point 
well advanced, leaped across the threshold. 

‘ God’s mercy !’ he cried, checking himself, 
and those behind him heard the rasp of his 
blade driven home into its sheath. 

Truly the sword had been so busy that there 
was no work left undone. In the great square 
hall the chief stand had been made, and on 


BEAUFOY’S WARD 


45 


every side were evidences of the fierceness of 
the struggle as piteous as plain. The arras 
was hacked, the hangings trailing in ribbons, 
the stone flags smeared and pooled and clotted 
with blood. In the swirl and eddy of combat 
the antique armour and furnishings of the wall 
had been overturned, and lay rolled in corners 
in a disordered wreck. The very panellings of 
the walls were splintered, and in more than 
one place the dull oak had taken on a deeper 
stain. 

But the centre of the floor was the focus to 
which all turned, and as De Beaufoy’s men 
crowded forward, the laggards thrusting aside 
the first comers as they pushed to the front, 
jest and laugh and clamour died in a gasp. It 
would be foolishness to expect a delicacy of 
sentiment from men whose trade it was to kill, 
maim, or burn all and sundry to their patron’s 
order, and for a fee of ten crowns a month, 
private hate or public weal being equally out 
of consideration ; but when it comes to poor 
humanity, even butchers have their repugnances. 

The strife, as has been said, had here been 
sharpest, and in the centre of the floor the 
victors had heaped their spoils. There they 
lay, flung in every contortion of twisted trunk 
and limb, nine marrings of God’s likeness. 


46 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


That they had fallen far apart was clear from 
the ghastly tracks smeared across the floor, but 
in the end they found companionship. Nerve- 
less hands grasped broken blades, and dead 
eyes looked out on life in dazed reproach, the 
pangs of staggering beyond the margin of the 
world still plain to be read. 

To those who found them death was common, 
and so a thing of small account ; but the callous 
crowding of man on man, the sheer indignity 
to the helpless clay, shook them with wrath, 
and the silence was broken by a clamour of 
malediction and cries for vengeance. But 
these Beaufoy hushed with a shake of his 
hand. 

‘Is Vaucourt there!*’ he said. ‘If not, we 
must search.’ 

One by one they ranged the slain men in 
line by the wall, but there was no Mark de 
Vaucourt, and as they laid the last in his place 
they turned in silence to the Seigneur, and 
through the silence there came a cry — a shrill, 
high-pitched petulant wail — the querulous com- 
plaint of helplessness in pain. 

‘ Let the dead bide with God,’ cried Beaufoy. 
‘ By St. Francis, there is life at last !’ 

Turning down the corridor to the left, he ran 
full speed up the narrow circular stone stairway 


BEAUFOY’S WARD 


47 


rising at its end, following the thin complaining 
cry. Everywhere were signs of struggle, and 
for all his haste he noted them ; round blots 
upon the worn steps, the print of an outstretched 
hand upon the hall, as where a man had 
staggered in his wild race with death, and once 
a broken sword-blade. Someone — or more — 
had fled, hard pursued from below, having work 
to finish above. 

Still following the wailing, Beaufoy ran down 
a narrow, ill-lit passage-way, and halted at a 
wrecked doorway — halted to think. The 
caution of the soldier had come back. But his 
men had followed close behind him, and now 
Marmontel pushed to the front. 

‘ By your leave. Seigneur, this is my place !’ 
said he, and would have entered. 

‘ Thy place when thou art Seigneur. Am 
not I first ?’ answered Beaufoy, and flung 
him reeling backward. ‘God’s mercy, Denise!’ 

On the bed lay a woman mercifully dead ; 
across her and scarcely human, he was so hewn 
and stabbed, Mark de Vaucourt ; and in a 
corner beyond the pillow sat an eight months 
old girl-child dry-sobbing, her little fists rubbed 
hard into the hollows of her eyes. That much 
Marmontel saw and the two or three others 
that crowded at his heels, but they saw no 


48 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


more ; nor to the day of his death would the 
Seigneur ever speak, by so much as a hint, of 
what he saw in that upper room at Vaucourt. 
Round on his men swung Beaufoy. 

‘ Hence, all of you !’ he cried. ‘ Let one so 
much as cross the door, and the nine below will 
become ten. This is a woman’s business or a 
priest’s, maybe.’ 

Then he went down upon his knees, and 
what he prayed and what he swore is known 
only to God and his own soul ; but those who 
watched him through the chinks of the broken 
door, and saw the play of his face, thought 
there was but little of priestliness in him, except 
it were in commination. 

When he came out into the passage again, he 
held the still sobbing child clumsily to his 
breast with his left arm — so clumsily, and with 
such a plainly unaccustomed air, that those 
gathered about the stairhead would have 
laughed for all the tragedy, but that the hard 
sternness in his eyes cowed them. 

‘ Let ten bide here on guard and the rest 
follow,’ he said to Marmontel, as he tramped 
down the curve of the stairs at the head of his 
troop, and out into the evening sunshine. 
Setting the child on the front of his saddle, and 
holding her firmly there with his left hand, he 


BEAUFOY’S WARD 


49 

mounted, and turning to the north-west, rode 
into the wood in silence. 

‘ But, Seigneur!’ ventured Marmontel, ranging 
alongside, ‘ vengeance lies south.’ 

The Seigneur turned on him with a snarl. 

‘ Beaufoy’s ward comes first,’ he said. ‘We 
ride for the convent of the Poor Clares. Ven- 
geance can wait, and, by the Lord, it will but 
ripen in the waiting. Be at ease, Marmontel ; 
these cowards shall find that my arm and my 
memory are alike long,’ 

Thenceforward for two hours they rode in 
silence, and the dusk was thick about them 
when Marmontel knocked at the porters’ lodge 
of the Convent of Our Lady of Good Hope, 
and bade the fellow tell the Mother Abbess 
that the Seigneur de Beaufoy was without on 
an errand of peace. 

‘And let her hasten,’ added Beaufoy as he 
dismounted. ‘For all our peace, I and mine 
are somewhat impatient,’ 

Presently the sliding panel set in the door 
rattled in its grooves, and from behind the bars 
of the opened grating a white face looked out. 
To have the courage of religion is well enough, 
but the reputation of Raimond de Beaufoy was 
none of the best, and rumour had it that he held 
few things sacred. 


4 


50 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 

‘ Madame ’ — and the Seigneur held the child 
so that the light from within fell upon her 
sleeping face — ‘ be this my surety and in a few 
words he told her of the sack of Vaucourt, and 
how that little Denise — ‘ I make no doubt, 
Madame, but that her name is Denise, and if it 
be not now, by St. Francis, it shall be hence- 
forth for her mother’s sake ’ — heiress of 
Vaucourt, was now ward of Beaufoy in virtue 
of his Suzerainty. ‘ Keep her for me, Madame. 
Who am I to nurture such a tender lamb, since — 
and if it be a sin may the Lord forgive me ! — 
there is but little of the sheep in me. So long 
as she bides here, Beaufoy will pay a hundred 
crowns yearly for her up-keep, and more if need 
be. Be it my part to see that Vaucourt yields 
it ; and, Madame, for pity’s sake and for the 
loving tender woman’s nature in you, send to 
Vaucourt to-morrow. Men can dig holes for 
men, but Madame de Vaucourt lies there, and 
there may be others, for we did not search.’ 

Thus it came that the care of the lands of the 
child Denise fell to Raimond de Beaufoy, while 
her nurture in body and spirit was watched over 
by Our Lady of Good Hope. 

In all respects the child throve. That 
Beaufoy presently forgot her was to her gain, 
since she was the more fully left to the gentle 


BEAUFOY’S WARD 


51 


and wholesome teachings of those who kept 
truth and faith alight in a dead and corrupt age. 
But if the Seigneur gave little heed to the child 
Denise, he nursed and fed Vaucourt with such 
goodwill that there were those who said it was 
no better than a fief of Beaufoy, and lied in the 
saying. Beaufoy was no spoiler of the weak, 
and least of all would he rob the charge that 
death and blood had committed to his ward. 
So, for eighteen years the months swung round ; 
Beaufoy, except for the payment of the tale of 
crowns, giving, as has been said, small heed to 
Denise de Vaucourt, when, with little warning, 
his memory was spurred into wakefulness. It 
came in this fashion. 

Of all Beaufoy ’s friends, and he had many, 
none had served him so well or so loyally as 
Henri de Beaucaire, a Picard gentleman of 
longer pedigree than purse, and who was, indeed, 
as poor in lands as he was rich in courage, 
honesty, and a sunny temper. For eight years 
the bond of frank faith, good-fellowship, and 
many dangers risked in common, had bound 
them fast, and one day as they sat under 
Beaufoy’s oak Beaucaire asked a recompense. 

‘ It is seven years since you married. Seigneur ’ 
he said, ‘ and to see that noble little lad grow- 
ing up at your knees fills me with envy. If 

4—2 


52 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


Monseigneur de Grandfrai grants leave, give me 
Denise for a wife, that I, too, may see my 
children before I am greyheaded and their 
youth is a burden to my age. I warrant 
Vaucourt and Beaufoy will be but closer knit’ 

Beaufoy set the lad down upon the grass. 

‘ Run to Marmontel, my Sieur, and learn thy 
sword-play. What talk is this of Grandfrai ? 
My Lord Bishop has his rights spiritual, and I 
my rights temporal. I pray the Lord the two 
do not clash, for Grandfrai’s sake.’ 

‘ But Denise, Seigneur, Denise ?’ 

‘ Oh, Denise, Denise ! I would as soon see 
thee at Vaucourt as any man ; but what of 
Grandfrai ? How come his fingers into the 
affairs of Vaucourt ? Am not I Suzerain Is 
Denise not Beaufoy ’s ward ?’ 

‘ Theodore of Grandfrai takes leave to doubt 
it,’ answered Beaucaire. ‘ That much I heard 
to-day.’ 

‘ Whose ward, then ? The King’s ?’ 

‘ N earer home, Seigneur : Grandfrai’s himself. 
He says the widow and the orphan are the 
peculiar care of the Church, and therefore ’ 

‘And therefore I must toil and plan and 

scheme for eighteen years to fatten Ha! by 

St. Francis 1 this must be seen to, lest he marry 
Denise to the Lord knows whom offhand, and 


BEAUFOY’S WARD 


53 


so the wealth of Vaucourt, of my making, will 
be a thorn in Beaufoy’s side for ever after. 
That Theodore of Grandfrai should play me 
such a trick ! I took him for a simple matins- 
and-vespers priest. Speak out, Beaucaire ; this 
touches you as closely as it does me. Is there 
more behind ?’ 

‘ Only that young Martin de Chapny * 

‘ De Chapny, De Chapny ? God give me 
patience ! I would have the man hung to his 
own lintel within the month. De Chapny, for- 
sooth ! Beaufoy owes him no goodwill, nor he 
Beaufoy. We must strike, my friend ; we must 
strike! At last I have found a use for Father 
Gr^goire. The good man must have grown 
rusty in marrying, and to-day he shall polish his 
memory. Let every man who can be spared 
make ready ; and, since the riding will be hard, 
the friar must stick to his saddle, though we tie 
his legs beneath the beast’s belly. De Chapny ! 
God’s mercy I Beaufoy has not yet fallen so 
low as to be tricked by any monk of them all, 
be he Bishop or begging brother.’ 

Though from Chateau Beaufoy to the convent 
of the Poor Clares, where Denise lay in charge 
of the gray nuns, was a three hours’ ride, it was 
all too short to cool the Seigneur’s wrath. 
Nay, the heat, the haste and the dust were so 


54 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


many spurs and goads to prick it into fresh 
fierceness, so that the evil temper in him grew 
with the miles. Nor did the sight that greeted 
his eyes outside the heavy gates of the convent 
quiet his humour. 

‘By St. Francis! my Lord Bishop is fore- 
handed with us. Yonder is a squire with 
De Chapny’s arms upon his shield. Thank the 
Lord there is a layman in the case, since to 
trounce a Churchman is as shameful as striking 
a woman, and one is like to gain as much or as 
little by the one as the other. Knock, Mar- 
montel, knock, and be not over-nice about it. 
Friend,’ he went on, as a scared face looked 
through the grating, ‘ for thy body’s health 
imperil thy soul a little, and open the door. 
Raimond de Beaufoy has come to claim his 
ward.’ 

Whereat, instead of the door opening the 
panel slid back in its grooves, and from across 
the wall came the ring of feet pattering 
up the hard roadway to the convent, which 
stood some hundred yards from the girdle of 
walls. 

‘ Let six face round, lest my Lord Bishop’s 
persuaders to the peace of God take us un- 
awares ; and do you, Marmontel, and two others 
pick me out of the wood a stout and heavy 


BEAUFOY’S WARD 


55 


sapling, lest in the maintenance of right and 
justice and the peace of the Suzerainty it be 
needful to batter in yonder door. Nay, stay a 
moment ; our friend of the white cheeks is back 
again, and not alone.’ 

This time the panel was untouched ; but after 
a mighty rasping of locks and shooting back of 
bolts, the postern to the left of the great door 
was flung wide, and into the open space stepped 
Theodore of Grandfrai. A right bishop-like 
picture he made, standing there in the frame- 
work of the doorpost and lintel, Christian 
prelate from his thin fringe of white hair to 
his sandalled feet. Unlike many of his day, 
he carried no insignia of the Church militant 
about him, saving those of spiritual warfare. A 
crucifix and a rosary swung from his girdle, the 
former of silver, the latter of some simple beads. 
His dress was no more than the gray frock of 
his Order ; and for all that he was the full 
figure of a man, the mild benevolence of his 
face warranted Beaufoy’s description of him as 
a priest of matins and vespers. He might also 
have added of charity and consolation, but that 
the Seigneur had never needed such ministra- 
tions. 

Yet, for all his mildness, Theodore of Grand- 
frai was no man to forego a jot of the rights of 


56 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


the Church, or abate a tittle of the privileges of 
religion. 

‘ Is this seemly, Seigneur de Beaufoy, to 
come clamouring at these gates of peace in such 
a fashion ?’ 

‘Is it seemly, my Lord Bishop,’ answered 
the Seigneur, no whit abashed, ‘ to filch my 
ward, Denise de Vaucourt, from me on some 
monkish pretence ? So goes the story ; if I am 
wrong I crave your pardon, but, by St. Francis! 
I claim my ward also.’ 

‘ The Lord forbid that I should so debase 
my office as filch a ward of thine, or of any 
man’s. There lies your error. Denise de 
Vaucourt is ward to Grandfrai, and not all the 
wrath or browbeating of every lord in France 
can loose the bond.’ 

‘Your ward. Bishop — yours? God’s 
mercy ’ 

‘ Nay, not mine, but Grandfrai’s/ 

‘ Have done with a juggle of words. Thy 
ward, for thou art Grandfrai ? What, then, of 
me ? Do I count for nought, who have sweated 
and laboured and planned for Vaucourt these 
eighteen years ?’ 

‘ At whose instance, Seigneur de Beaufoy ? 
Your own and no one else’s. It is time’ — and 
the Bishop squared his shoulders and looked 


BEAUFOY’S WARD 


57 


Beaufoy full in the face — ‘ it is time you learned 
that to lay your hand upon a thing is not to 
own it.’ 

‘ What !’ cried Beaufoy, smiting a clenched 
fist upon a palm, ‘ do I want Vaucourt By 
the Lord, no! But here is my friend, Messire 
Henri de Beaucaire, whom I have brought to 
wed my ward, Denise de Vaucourt, and wed her 
he shall. By the King’s grace, I am Seigneur.’ 

‘ By God’s grace, I am Bishop,’ answered the 
other; ‘and just so much as God outweighs 
the King, does my right overtop yours. 
Denise de Vaucourt is orphaned, and to the 
orphan the Church of Christ is mother para- 
mount. To Messire de Beaucaire I take no 
exception. An estimable gentleman in all 
truth, but Denise de Vaucourt is already pro- 
mised. Her betrothal is this very night, and 
so little do I fear you or your pretended rights. 
Seigneur, that I frankly ask your presence and 
that of any three you will ; but let a fifth seek 
to cross the doorway, and I tell you, Raimond 
de Beaufoy, that you will set ablaze such a fire 
in Angoumois as will need the tears of all 
France to quench. Come an you will come, or 
bide; it’s all one to me.’ 

Turning, he left the door open behind him, 
and walked slowly up the path to the great gray 


58 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


building, of which glimpses could be caught 
between the laden orchard -trees that closed it 
round. For an instant Beaufoy sat his saddle, 
weighing the chances, then he flung himself to 
the ground. 

‘ He is right, it were a fool’s deed to split 
Angoumois on such a question ; yet, by the 
faith of Beaufoy, De Chapny shall not marry 
Denise de Vaucourt. Come, Beaucaire, follow 
thou, Marmontel ; he said take three, and I 
will take but two. Hark you’ — and he turned 
sharply to his men — ‘ let there be no brawlings. 
Who touches Grandfrai or Chapny, except 
upon my word, touches me. The Lord forbid 
that any unconsidered zeal should set Angou- 
mois a-burning.’ 

Leisurely, and like one who knew that what- 
soever was in progress must needs wait his 
pleasure, the Seigneur followed Theodore o 
Grandfrai, pausing every half dozen or dozen 
paces to point out this or that to Beaucaire, as 
if to set an accent on his slowness. 

‘Trust the Church to be well served. Saw 
you ever such a burden of fruit or such a 
smooth pleasantness of turf? By St. Francis, 
if I were not Beaufoy I would be a monk ! 
Not Charles in his beloved gardens is more 
daintily surrounded. Mark the wealth of 


BEAUFOY’S WARD 


59 


Madonna lilies, and out of season, too; the very 
air is spiced by them. Poor Clares they call 
themselves ! See the carvings of the doorway, 
and there on yonder gables ; my faith, what 
better could they have an they were Rich 
Clares! What, my friend, the Bishop waits 
us? Ay, ay! lead thou, and we will follow. 
It were the crime of a heretic to make a Bishop 
wait !’ 

Behind the great door with its many bolts 
and studs of metal was yet another barrier, a 
kind of latticed screen of hammered ironwork, 
and beyond it lay the cool gray of the broad 
and silent hall. Crossing this they were 
ushered into a chamber whose magnificent pro- 
portions of width, height, and length might 
well have been the glory of a palace, even had 
its mouldings and frescoes been less splendid. 
Here again there was silence, but a silence 
tremulous with the life of a great throng 
strained into attention. 

For half its space the room was packed, but 
packed so that its lower end and three-fourths 
of its centre were empty. Up between the 
crowded lines of gray-robed women walked the 
Seigneur, Beaucaire at his side, and Marmontel 
two paces in the rear. His eyes were smiling, 
but his mouth was hard-set, and to one who 


6o THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


knew him it was plain he was in no placable 
mood. 

But it was neither to right nor left that he 
looked, but in front, where, at the further end 
of the room, the Abbess stood, a group of her 
nuns about her, Denise by her side, and Theo- 
dore of Grandfrai, with a dozen of his monks — 
De Chapny in their midst — ranged at her left. 
Six paces from her he stopped. 

‘ My thanks, Madame, for all the love and 
care you have shown my ward, and I pledge you 
my faith that Raimond de Beaufoy has as long 
a memory for an obligation as for an injury. 
Could a man who has to hold his own with the 
world say more ? But now the time has come 
to relieve you of your charge, and that you 
may have no fear for her safety, I have a score 
of men without who know no other law than 
that I give them. To be frank, Madame, I 
have promised Denise in marriage to my friend 
Messire Henri de Beaucaire, and where Beau- 
foy gives his friendship, no woman need shrink 
from giving her trust.’ 

‘ But ’ — and the Abbess drew Denise towards 
her, a slender slip of a girl, dressed in the 
plainest white, and her hair drawn back from 
her pale face in a simple knot — ‘ Denise is but 
a child.’ 



“ THE ABBESS STOOD, A GROUP OF HER NUNS ABOUT HER.” 



BEAUFOY'S WARD 


6i 


‘ My Lord Bishop differs, Madame,’ answered 
Beaufoy gravely. ‘ And she who is woman 
enough for Martin de Chapny is woman enough 
for Henri de Beaucaire.’ 

‘ I am here,’ cried De Chapny, ‘ by grace of 

Monseigneur de Grandfrai, and * 

‘ La, la, la !’ broke in the Seigneur. ‘ May 
Monseigneur de Grandfrai teach you better 
manners ; though, if he fails in that duty, never 
fear, there are others to take his place ! This 
is no affair of yours, Messire, saving as cat’s- 
paw to Grandfrai’s monkey.’ 

‘ But it is of mine, Raimond de Beaufoy ’ — 
and Bishop Theodore confronted the Seigneur. 

‘ Denise de Vaucourt is ward to Grandfrai by 
right and privilege of the Church. What ? 
Because you mouth and bully, shall I play 
traitor to my trust ? No, not for fifty Beaufoys, 
with fifty score church plunderers at their back ! 
Listen ’ 

‘ No, rather listen thou !’ cried Beaufoy. 
‘ Must 1 lose my toil because it suits your 
crooked politics to filch my labour on a trumped 
pretence Denise is Beaufoy’s by right of 
lives set in the balance and eighteen years of 
struggle. And here, before you all, and in the 

face of God, 1 swear ’ 

‘ Swear not at all, Raimond de Beaufoy, lest. 


62 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


in reply, instead of calling God to witness, I call 
Him to curse.’ 

‘ Curse on,’ cried Beaufoy, gripping round 
for his sword, ‘ but have Denise I shall ! De 
Beaucaire, Marmontel, come ; they are but a 
pack of monks !’ 

‘Men as well as monks !’ cried back the 
Bishop, and at a sign the brethren gathered 
round the Abbess, confronting Beaufoy with 
uplifted crucifixes. 

‘ Tush !’ said the Seigneur, ramming home 
his half-drawn blade. ‘ Said I not that a man 
could no more strike a monk than a woman ? 
For peace’ sake, I will humour the girl. 
Hearken, Denise. I was your mother’s friend, 
and in the day of her need all that man could 
do to save her I did. You, at least, I saved. 
Vaucourt I have tended, nursed, nourished, 
and, so far as lay within me, I have played the 
father. Remember this, and tell me, is it your 
wish to marry Martin de Chapny ?’ 

And out of the great silence that followed, 
Denise, never lifting her head from the Mother’s 
breast, answered in a whisper, ‘ No.’ 

‘Good!’ cried De Beaufoy. ‘If you owed 
me a debt, Denise, you have paid in full. Are 
you answered. Monseigneur ?’ 

‘ Hearken, Denise,’ said Theodore of Grand- 


BEAUFOY’S WARD 


63 


frai in his turn. ‘ For eighteen years the Church 
has guarded, sheltered, taught, and loved you. 
In your sorrows you have been comforted ; in 
your troubles you have been soothed ; in your 
doubts you have been guided. The love of 
God has been brought near to you. Mother- 
less, you have lacked no mother ; fatherless, 
you have lacked no father. Remember this, 
and tell me, Denise — is it your will to marry 
Henri de Beaucaire ?’ 

And again, holding the Mother the closer, 
Denise answered, ‘No.’ 

For a moment there was a silence, and it was 
the girl who broke it. 

‘ Keep me. Mother, and hold me fast. If I 
am but worthy, let me be as you are, the bride 
of the Lord Christ and of none else.’ 

Again there was a silence, such a silence as 
when men feel that the Eternal is very near, 
and this time it was Beaufoy who broke it. 

‘ So be it,’ he said solemnly. ‘ Let us leave 
bickering, we two. Thou and I must stand 
aside. Bishop, for here is a greater than us 
both.’ 


Ill 

BEAUFOY’S VENGEANCE 


When the men of Angoumois spoke of the 
vengeance of Beaufoy, which they did for three 
generations, they had in their thought a certain 
late August day in 1467, the year that saw 
that gamecock among princes, Charles the Bold, 
buckle on his spurs. And if, in that vengeance, 
the Seigneur forgot mercy in judgment there is 
this in his excuse : that he dealt with those who 
showed no mercy. Further, if the chief end of 
judgment is to deter evil-doers, then had there 
never been before so shrewd a stroke of justice, 
since for hard on a score of years thereafter 
the Suzerainty had peace from reivers, forest 
thieves, and masterless men. Yet, for all this, 
the vengeance was unbecoming a Christian man, 
though it was characteristic of Raimond de 
Beaufoy that because he struck for another he 
struck hard, for it was not Beaufoy that he 
avenged, but Theodore, Bishop of Grandfrai. 
This was how it came about. 


BEAUFOY’S VENGEANCE 65 

As, hard upon seven years before, they two 
had ridden out from the Convent of Our Lady 
of Good Hope, as has been already told, the 
Seigneur was half content and half wrathful. 
He had lost his point, but so had my Lord 
Bishop, and they were therefore quits. Now, 
to hold himself no better than his neighbour 
was a new thing to Beaufoy, and set him think- 
ing ; so that at last, out of the fulness of his 
heart, he spoke. 

‘ I owe ) ou no grudge for this day’s worsting,’ 
said he. ‘ At best ’tis a stalemate, and none can 
cry “ Check ” to the other. The wisdom of it 
to me is this : that you have need of me for this 
world. Bishop, and I of you for the next. Let 
us join hands, and so both be the stronger. 
VVho touches Grandfrai touches Beaufoy, and 
Beaufoy will see to it ; and thou on thy part 
hast thy prayers, thy masses — eh Is it a 
bargain 

Theodore of Grandfrai turned in his saddle 
and looked down the long line of Beaufoy’s 
men. 

‘ I understand well enough,’ said he, still 
looking hard behind, ‘ but I think the heavy 
end of the stick lies with me.’ 

‘ By St. Francis, not so!’ cried the Seigneur. 
‘ Heard you ever that Beaufoy had wronged 

5 


66 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


woman or weakling, sold justice for a bribe, 
broke the plight of his oath, set self before 
sacrifice, lived sleek on another’s sweat, swined 
himself with wine, or worked another’s downfall 
by false craft ? No saint am I, Monseigneur, 
to my shame and sorrow, but no sinner beyond 
Christ’s mercy. Besides, a five-year-old boy 
makes for virtue in his father. Is it a bargain ?’ 

‘Raimond de Beaufoyis Raimond de Beaufoy,’ 
answered the Bishop. ‘ But what of two score 
of the earth’s dross ?’ 

‘ Leave them to me to keep clean by the 
fear of man if not of God. Is it a bargain, I 
say ?’ 

And Theodore answered : 

‘ A bargain. Seigneur ; and for life ?* 

Whereat Beaufoy rubbed his chin. 

‘Why, no. Monseigneur; that were as bad 
as if a man took to himself a second wife, and 
one is enough for me. A life’s a long arm’s- 
length. Say seven years.’ 

‘ And then,’ said the Bishop slyly, ‘ the year 
of release !’ 

‘ The year of release,’ echoed Beaufoy gravely, 
not understanding a jot of the reference, ‘ A 
good phrase, and mayhap an apt one.’ 

‘And will the pact include the Convent of 
Our Lady.^’ 


BEAUFOY’S VENGEANCE 


67 


•The Convent of Our Lady holds Denise de 
Vaucourt,’ answered Beaufoy sternly, ‘and say 
what you will, she is Beaufoy’s ward. Woe to 
him, gentle or simple, who touches Our Lady 
of Good Hope while Denise de Vaucourt 
lives !’ 

‘ Between us two, then. Seigneur ?’ 

‘ Between us two. Bishop. There is my 
hand upon it, and if I fail to hold to my pledge, 
may the Lord show me no mercy in my time 
of need.’ 

And so the compact was made. That, as 
has been said, was seven years past, and now, 
with no more than the last few sands of the 
time to run, Raimond de Beaufoy had roused 
the Seigneurie that he might keep faith. Thrice 
before he had done this, but thrice only in two- 
and-thirty years. Once after the Vaucourt 
massacre, to beat the woods for men as a hunter 
might for wolves and foxes ; once when he led 
fifty trained men and four times that of villains 
to aid, at his own cost, in the crushing of Talbot 
at Castillon ; and once, as shall be told, when 
the King came to Beaufoy. 

For the repressing of sudden turbulence, the 
enforcings of his powers of justice or right as 
Seigneur, Beaufoy’s paid men were commonly 
sufficient. But this was no common case, and 

5—2 


68 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


so he had roused the Seigneurie, and marched 
on Grandfrai with five-score men at his back. 

‘ This,’ said Beaufoy to Marmontel, his squire, 
who rode by his side, ‘comes of living over- 
little for this world and over-much for the next. 
A man while he has his feet on earth should 
keep some of his wits there too. Here is 
Theodore of Grandfrai, as gracious and kindly 
a man as ever said “ No!” out of a stern con- 
science, and yet he must need set his vassals by 
the ears, as if they were not flesh and blood 
because they were chattels of the Church. 
Pray God they have not got his palace tore 
down about him before we succour him.’ 

‘ But by your leave. Seigneur,’ said Marmontel 
— it was Marmontel the younger, and own son 
of his father in devotion to Beaufoy — ‘ if Flemish 
Peter told truth, these are the very scum of 
the woods. Broken men from east and west, 
camp-followers from the wars round Paris, free- 
lances, rogues, thieves, and worse. How 
then ’ 

‘ The nearer the devil the greater need of the 
Church ’ — and the Seigneur laughed. ‘ Would 
you have my Lord Bishop fret and harry gray- 
frocked monks ? But he missed his mission. 
Stocks, pillories, and brandings stand in poor 
stead of the love of God, and yet I do not blame 


BEAUFOY’S VENGEANCE 


69 


Theodore of Grandfrai, but rather that thin- 
faced Spaniard that sits in his ear. May the 
Lord love Beaufoy better than to leave its 
Seigneur to play the fool to its undoing in his 
old age ! See what comes of it. There was 
Grandfrai, a father in Angoumois these twenty 
years. If he spoke a blunt word now and then, 
it was all in kindness ; and what man had the 
better right than he who fed the hungry, soothed 
the sorrowing, assoilzied the dying, and loved 
all, the small and the great, with an equal love, 
and never to his own gain ? That he clung to 
his rights like a dog to a bone was naught to his 
disparagement : a man should be a man, and 
no boneless jellyfish. Then comes this Sala- 
manca Prior, and in a twinkle white’s black. 
A year ago these rogues, scum as they are, 
would have throttled the viler rogue who cursed 
Grandfrai ; now they have passed beyond 
curses and come to works.’ 

‘ And we,’ said Marmontel sourly, ‘ must 
dance till our bones ache to the music set 
blaring by this same lean bigot.’ 

‘ No, by St. Francis, no !’ cried the Seigneur ; 
‘ but rather you must uphold Beaufoy’s pledged 
word, and that you shall do, were it passed to 
the devil himself.’ 

Grandfrai, for all its bishopric, was no more 


70 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


than a straggling village on the highroad from 
Ruffec to Nortron, and lay beyond the boundary 
of Beaufoy’s Suzerainty ; and, saving for his 
compact, the quarrel was no more his than that 
of Blaise la Valette, Gaspard St. Claud, or the 
Count de Confolens. But of these the first was 
in his dotage, the second at Paris with Louis, 
and no mortal ever knew the third care for 
aught save the filling of his stomach with meat 
and drink. On Beaufoy, then, fell the burden 
of law and order, and as they rode into Grand- 
frai it was plain there was no light weight to be 
borne. 

Not a house but was mishandled — the doors 
driven in, the thatch a-smouldering, the patches 
of vineyard and melons broken down or trampled 
into ruin, and the paths strewn with the wrecked 
litter of the poor furnishings. Nor had their 
owners escaped. Sorrowful lamentations were 
matched with still more sorrowful silences, and 
the bitterest fruit of war had been plucked and 
scattered in the lavish waste of an abundant 
harvest. 

Half Grandfrai lay dead in its spoiled gardens. 
Here a huddle of woman’s clothes ; there a 
sodden lump choking the trickling flow of the 
kennel ; further on a graybeard peasant prone 
across his threshold, half within and half with- 


BEAUFOY’S VENGEANCE 


71 


out, and who had died on his knees as he fell ; 
groups of twos and threes that in desperation 
had turned bare-handed on their murderers ; 
but everywhere, to right and left, desolation 
and death. But neither fire nor slaughter 
checked the Seigneur, until, midway up the 
straggle of the village, he halted to question a 
woman sitting in the road with a babe on her 
lap. She was the first living thing he had seen 
in Grandfrai. 

‘What of Monseigneur the Bishop?’ he cried, 
leaning across his horse’s neck. 

She looked up at him dully, then back to the 
babe, shaking her head. Gathering her burden 
into her left arm, she fumbled at the bosom of 
her dress, opening it, and setting to her breast 
the mouth of the child. As she did so, a trickle 
of blood came from the lips that should have 
sucked ; and again she looked up, silent but 
whimpering, and her mouth all a-tremble. 

‘ Damnation !’ said the Seigneur softly be- 
tween his teeth ; and sitting back in his saddle, 
he drove his spurs hard home. ‘ Ride on, 
men !’ he said, and galloped forward, nor 
paused again until they turned into the square 
where stood the palace, with its ugly, squat, 
low-roofed church across the angle. 

From end to end the place was empty, but 


72 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


there were those scattered on the shallow flight 
of steps leading up to the church-doors to show 
that life had been. In ones and twos they lay 
as they had fallen, but chiefly to the sides, as if 
they had been caught and cut down in a frantic 
rush for shelter — women, for the most part, 
drawn by the service, for the day was the day 
of St. John Baptist. 

At the sound of the hoof-beats in the square 
there came a stir from the church. White, 
scared faces looked out of the black vault of 
the open door, across which there hung the 
tattered remnants of a heavy curtain, and of a 
sudden there was a thin babble of lamentation. 
The terror-bound tongues were unloosed, and 
wrath and sorrow found voice ; no form of 
words, no coherency, only a shrill, murmuring 
clamour as of Rachel weeping for her children 
and beyond all comfort. 

Leaping down, his face white under its 
bronze, Beaufoy mounted the steps, Marmontel 
and a dozen others hard behind. In the sharp 
fury of battle he had sent more than one man 
to his death, and thought naught of it either 
then or afterward ; but this callous slaughter, 
as of sheep, this dry-voiced wailing, half fear, 
half loss, moved him as never had stricken 
field. 


BEAUFOY’S VENGEANCE 


73 

At the door of the church he paused in a 
rare uncertainty. 

‘ Where is Monseigneur ? Have they dared 
mishandle him like — like ’ — and he looked with 
a gesture down the steps — ‘ like these others 

It was a woman who answered, an old witch- 
wife, shrunk and wizened with age. 

‘ Come and see,’ said she, and gripped him 
by the arm. 

She had seen too much that day to have 
terror of the living, though he were Seigneur, 
Suzerain, or King. When one has rubbed 
elbows with death for a full hour, there is little 
left in life to fear. A day before it might have 
cost her her right hand to have so much as 
touched the Seigneur ; now, calamity had drawn 
together class and class, and she gripped him 
as if he were but flesh and blood like herself. 

‘ Come and see.’ 

She led him in, the now silent troop of 
peasants shuffling at their heels. The church 
was in utter darkness, except for one twinkling 
lamp hung high up against the roof — so high 
that it had escaped the destruction measured 
out to every altar and in every side-chapel ; but 
so thick was the gloom — for the church was 
built against blind walls to north and south — 
and so thin and remote the light, that all the 


74 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


further end, where was the great altar, and 
behind the pillars, was black as night. 

Ten steps from the door, and Beaufoy — the 
woman still clinging to him — paused, that his 
eyes might grow accustomed to the gloom, and 
in behind him gathered the small remnant of 
the people of Grandfrai, dumb, or whispering 
shrilly under their breath, and staring hard at 
the Seigneur. The strength of the church — 
their trust for so many years — was broken ; 
but here was a new and rougher power, and 
dimly, half unconsciously, their trust went out 
to him. 

Slowly the darkness gave up its secrets. 
First, the loom of the wide pillars, with rough, 
unusual, sprawling patches at their feet, with 
here and there a blotch of gray that, as their 
eyes found power, lightened into a dead face ; 
then the uncertain stretch of walls, broken by 
niches or small votive chapels ; and lastly, 
slowly — very slowly — the far-off chancel-stalls 
and the dim brown depths of the choir. 

After that the tale of ruin told itself without 
words : altar-pieces shredded from their frames, 
splintered crucifixes upholding maimed Christs, 
statues laid in shivers. The very railings of 
the altar had been torn from their place and 
used to batter down the shrines. Not a marble 


BEAUFOY’S VENGEANCE 


75 


stood upon its base ; not a candlestick but was 
crushed and twisted ; not a vestment but was 
rent to rags and rolled in the blood of that 
day’s martyrdom. 

‘ See !’ — and the woman turned her wrinkled 
face up to Beaufoy, shaking his arm as she 
spoke — ‘ see, they were worse than devils ! 
Not Satan himself would dare touch holy 
things.’ 

‘ But Monseigneur,’ cried Beaufoy, speaking 
in his impatience and dread as men were not 
wont to speak in such a place — ‘ where is Mon- 
seigneur ?' 

‘ Come and see,’ said the woman a second 
time. 

With the assured step of one who knows 
every tile in the worn pavement, she urged the 
Seigneur forward ; then, of a sudden, when a 
dozen feet from the shattered railing that had 
shut apart the chancel, she dropped his arm 
and ran forward alone. At the altar steps she 
paused, and falling on her knees called to him 
in a hoarse whisper : 

‘See, Seigneur, see! Were they not worse 
than devils ?’ 

There, on the third step, was Theodore of 
Grandfrai, done to death in the very ministry 
of the service. That he had turned to meet 


76 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


these breakers of sanctuary was clear, for his 
wounds were all in front, as those of a warrior 
should be, and to the last Theodore of Grand- 
frai had been a true soldier of the Cross. That 
he had died denouncing sin and defending his 
flock was probable, for behind him was a 
shambles, and his wounds were many and 
deep. But whatever of wrath there had been 
was gone, and he lay as if asleep. His eyes 
were closed, his arms drawn decently to his 
side, and on his breast lay a rude crucifix carved 
from some common wood. 

‘ God give us all as sweet a rest,’ said 
Beaufoy, turning to those about him. ‘ Which 
way went these slayers of priests 

As he spoke there was a hum and a buzz 
across the church. They loved their Bishop, 
these poor souls, and the Seigneur’s pity was 
dear to them ; but for the moment they loved 
vengeance better. At once a dozen voices 
broke out, and in the dim light there were wild 
and passionate gestures. 

‘ Westward, Seigneur, westward ; and there 
are none so many of them, no more than two 
score.’ 

‘Two score! And they sacked Grand- 
frai ?’ 

‘Two score devils,’ answered the woman. 


BEAUFOY’S VENGEANCE 


77 

‘and they took us by surprise. My son Jean 
they piked as ’ 

‘ Ay, I can guess the tale. Let it rest, 
mother,’ 

Down on his knees he went, and lifting up 
the crucifix, he kissed it before them all and 
held it aloft. 

‘ I was too late. Lord God — too late to save 
him ! And though he might say, “ Lord, lay 
not this sin to their charge,” so say not I.’ 

Then he kissed the cross a second time, and 
laid it back whence he had taken it. 

‘ Let Beaufoy’s men follow me,’ he said, 
rising. ‘ The rest bide here and right this 
disorder as best they can.’ 

At the door he turned, and thrusting aside 
the tattered curtain, looked back into the gloom. 

* Listen !’ he said, ‘ and I pray God the dead 
can hear it also. Until justice be done, I swear 
by the honour of Beaufoy that I will not cross 
the door of my house — no, not though the 
vengeance be seven years in the coming ’ — and, 
at the words, from behind him there came a 
shout that grew and swelled into a roar. 

Beaufoy’s men were as hot in the blood as 
Beaufoy’s lord. 

* If it were into hell’s mouth,’ said Mar- 
montel as they rode at a sharp trot out into the 


78 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


pastures, ‘they would follow you unwinking, 
their gall is so stirred. Seigneur, you never 
heard the like of the poor folks’ tales : they 
were a shame to Christendom, and the. Lord 
have mercy on the Spanish Prior !’ 

‘ By St. Francis,’ cried Beaufoy, ‘I had for- 
gotten the Prior ! What of him ?’ 

‘ They have him fast ; and if we do not catch 
them up by nightfall- ’ 

‘ We must, we shall !’ — and Beaufoy smote 
his thigh with his clenched fist. ‘ Their spoil 
of beasts hinders them, and, besides, they are 
drunk with slaughter, and so have no fear. Be 
content, Marmontel ; we shall catch them.’ 

‘ And then. Seigneur ?’ 

Raimond de Beaufoy ’s face grew ugly in its 
grim hardness. ‘Wait,’ he said, ‘wait,’ and 
said no more ; but the words were fuller of 
meaning than a curse. 

Yet at this time the Seigneur had no plan. 
How or where he should lay hands on them, or 
how deal with the wretches he knew not, and 
what happened afterwards happened in a sense 
of chance. 

‘ There are some two or three on horseback. 
Seigneur,’ went on Marmontel; ‘part of the 
loot of Grandfrai.’ 

‘ On horseback, eh ?’ And Beaufoy laughed 


BEAUFOY’S VENGEANCE 


79 


dourly. ‘ Set a beggar on horseback, and 
where does he ride ? On my word, they are 
like to learn shortly whether or no the proverb 
holds. Faster, men, faster !’ 

To track two-score reivers with a mixed 
multitude of cattle, sheep, and goats was no 
hard matter. The broken undergrowth and 
trampled grass left no room for question. 
Apparently they had been in no haste, for at 
intervals the belt of trodden herbage broadened 
out that the beasts might rest and crop the 
grass, green enough under the trees, in spite of 
the parched dryness of the long summer. 
What need had they for haste? Grandfrai 
was palsied, and they guessed nought of the 
urgent message sent to Beaufoy. 

The Seigneur’s troop had held their course 
for little more than an hour, when Marmontel, 
who rode by his master, half checked his horse 
and pointed ahead. Between the distant tree- 
trunks, here more scattered than common, was 
a brown and dun dappling that twinkled in and 
out, now showing clear, now lost again. 

‘ We have them. Seigneur, we have them ! 
Ten minutes’ gallop, and we’re in touch.’ 

But Beaufoy threw up a warning hand, and 
reined back. They had ridden far, and their 
beasts were fagged ; now that they held their 


8o THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


prey, as it were in a leash, there was no need 
for haste. So for half an hour the hunters and 
the unconscious quarry kept an even pace. So 
near were they that at times laughter or a 
snatch of song came down the wind, but never 
once did those before look back. Then there 
befell a kind of chance. A horse of the troop 
of those ahead whinnied, and one of Beaufoy’s 
answered, and on the moment the Seigneur 
struck home his spurs. 

‘The hunt’s afoot!’ he cried. ‘Forward, 
men, and leave mercy to God Almighty !’ 

With a shout they broke into a gallop, sweep- 
ing like shadows between the tree-trunks, and 
with an answering shout, half terror, half rage, 
the men in front woke into life. There was an 
instant’s confusion ; then, like men used to the 
worst emergencies and trained to prompt action, 
they dashed on, abandoning their booty without 
a thought to fight for it. Rogues in grain, they 
could thieve or murder, but had little stomach 
for battle. 

To Beaufoy’s joy they held together. Had 
they scattered, his vengeance would have been 
as slow to win as to eat a pomegranate seed by 
seed ; and as he saw them driving ahead in a 
bunch, he blessed St. Francis in his heart. In 
the centre of the flying group was a bound man 


BEAUFOY’S VENGEANCE 


8i 


— the Salamancan Prior, no doubt, and he 
hindered them. 

‘ See !’ said the Seigneur to Marmontel, a 
grim laugh on his face, ‘ vengeance is ever 
sweeter than spoils, and the rascals will risk 
hanging for their small hope of revenge. There 
they go to the left like a drove of scared sheep. 
Was the straight course not good enough for 
them ? By the saints ! I have it. They are in 
full cry for the Cave of the Wolves, and may 
slip our fingers yet. There is an outlet on the 
south. Round with you, Marmontel, and five 
with you ! The exit there is narrow, no more 
than the squeeze of a horse. Block it up, and 
we have them in a trap. Ride, man, ride ! 
there are rocks in plenty. Oh, St. Francis, my 
patron, I thank thee from my soul — I thank 
thee from my soul ! Ask what thou wilt of me, 
and by the Lord whose man I am, I will give 
it thee — ay, to the whole of Beaufoy !’ 

In his deep, wolfish gladness the Seigneur’s 
heart was in his cry, but there is no record that 
he was ever the poorer for his oath, mayhap 
because St. Francis was sworn to poverty. 

Away to the left sped Marmontel with half 
a dozen at his beast’s heels, each urging his 
horse to the utmost speed. The distance was 
not great, but the ground was on an upward 

6 


82 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


slope, and if they were to stop the second hole 
of the burrow, they had need to make haste. 
Stop it they did, rolling down into the narrow 
gap heavy boulders and cruel pointed rocks, so 
that neither horse nor man could force a way 
through, and so that end of the cave comes no 
more into the tale. 

But while Marmontel rode fast, Beaufoy 
checked his men. Now that he saw their goal, 
he had no mind to balk them. He would 
have them pent as in the hollow of his hand, 
whereas to have blundered into their midst 
would have been to lose some of them in the 
scattering. Therefore he checked the pursuit, 
and let them break out of the wood and into 
the cave’s mouth unmolested. As he sat 
waiting and rubbing his chin, his eye caught 
the dull glare of the charcoal furnaces spread 
through the great stretch of beech-trees, and a 
thought struck him. 

‘ I shall try it! By St. Francis, I shall try it!’ 
he cried. ‘ The pity is for the beasts ; as for 
the men, ’tis their due and no more. Listen !’ 
and he beckoned to Flemish Peter to come 
near. ‘ Back, thou, to Grandfrai, and search 
out a dozen or a score of horses ; never fear but 
there are some hidden away. Clap on their 
backs as many of Beaufoy’s men as they can 


BEAUFOY’S VENGEANCE 


83 


carry, two or three apiece, if need be — the louts 
can hold one another in place — and let them 
bring every man a shovel and a mattock. 
Hunt through the palace of my Lord Bishop 
and pick me out a dozen or more of sheets or 
blankets, as broad and as long as thou canst 
find, and be not too nice in choosing, since 
those we saw in the church are done with such 
things. Bring these, thou, and bid them send 
wine and meat after us. Then ride here every 
man of you, and waste no time, though your 
beasts drop.’ 

Then, the quarry having gone to earth, he 
roused up his horse and pushed on. 

The cave opened from a narrow cleft in the 
flat face of naked rock, the mouth being set 
some thirty yards back at the head of a roofless 
path, with a double turn approaching in shape 
to a rude S, so that those without were hidden 
from those within. Facing this wall of rock 
was a sun-dried, semicircular plateau, stretching 
back a half furlong to the outlying timber that 
fringed the forest ; a plateau that had been a 
luxuriant greenness while the spring rains en- 
dured, but which was now a barren wilderness 
of sere and crisped herbage. 

Across this rode Beaufoy, boldly pushing 
between the lines of rock, and only drew rein 

6—2 


84 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


when in full sight of the cave’s mouth. As he 
had reckoned, it was empty, those within having 
made all haste to escape by the upper end, only 
to find Marmontel forehanded with them. 

‘ Off and unsaddle !’ cried Beaufoy. ‘ Here 
we camp for to-night, at least. When they 
come racketing back, as they will presently, let 
them find a fire to welcome them. A dozen of 
us in sight will do, and some of you tether the 
beasts back in the woods for coolness.’ 

The story of how the trapped wretches, 
hearing the rattle of the rocks rolled into the 
cramped narrowness of the upper outlet, rounded 
in their tracks and made pell-mell for the 
entrance, only to find a camp-fire crackling in 
their path ; and how they turned back to the 
inner blackness cursing their folly, may go 
untold. So, too, the story of the weary and 
yet unwearied vigilance of Beaufoy ’s men, who 
all night long watched by the roaring blaze, 
sleepless and singing — for never once from mid- 
night onward did they cease the chant the 
Seigneur had bid them strike up, to muffle that 
ring of mattock and shovel being plied in the 
open outside the rocks. 

It was at midnight that Beaufoy 's men came 
straggling in from Grandfrai in twos and threes, 
and found their labour waiting them. 


BEAUFOY’S VENGEANCE 


85 


‘ See !' — and the Seigneur pointed out in the 
moonlight two lines of little sticks ten feet 
apart, and drawn from rock to rock in a curve, 
so as to enclose the entrance of the cave. 

‘ Draw me a trench between these lines. First 
skin the surface some two inches deep, and lay 
aside the dry sods ; then let the sides sink as 
if by a plummet. Spread out these cloths to 
the outer edge of the curve, and fill the stuff 
into them. One-third dig, one-third empty the 
cloths into the wood yonder, and one- third rest. 
Change shifts every hour. The ground is 
sandy and easy to work, but with enough of 
clay to bind the sand. Remember what you 
saw this day in Grandfrai, and work. Or, if 
you will not work for the honour of Beaufoy 
and the glory of God, work for the five crowns 
wherewith every man of you may drink himself 
drunk for seven days hereafter. Or, if not for 
that, then, by St. Francis, work for your skin’s 
sake ; for, by the faith of Beaufoy, the man who 
lags had better have died this day at Grandfrai! 
Do you hear, dogs ? Work, I say, work !’ 

So on through the changing shadows of the 
night, on into the dawn and breadth of the 
young day there was no pause in the stroke of 
mattock or swing of shovels, and by the time 
the sun was above the beech-trees Beaufoy had 


86 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


his will in a huge black trench, ten feet across 
and as many deep, that yawned in a great bow 
from cliff to cliff, its sides as smooth and straight 
as if set by stone and cord. Only at either end 
was there a path a foot wide, and battened up 
to keep it from falling in. 

‘ Good.’ said the Seigneur. ‘ Go and rest, 
my children ; you have done well. Now, 
Marmontel, seek me out of the woods straight 
saplings and lay them across, two yards apart 
and as many inches below the surface, while I 
talk to our friends of the charcoal furnaces.’ 

A long furlong off, where the beech forest 
thickened, were the huts of the charcoal-burners 
and their furnaces ; the first, rude temporary 
booths, bough-thatched, to give some shelter 
from rain — need of warmth there was none. 
The second, conical sod-coated heaps built about 
piled faggots, with here and there vents that 
glowed ruddily by night, even when the sluggish 
smoke was thickest. Between the huts were 
great stacks of new-made charcoal, ready for 
the first buyer’s winter store of fuel. The men 
themselves were sturdy and strong built, more 
than one having the muscles of a Hercules 
under the grime of a Vulcan. 

At first they had crowded forward to see the 
unwonted sight of a score of fools digging a 


BEAUFOY’S VENGEANCE 


87 


hole to apparently no purpose ; but presently, 
with the apathy of men who have no room in 
life for a thought beyond meat and the toil that 
earns it, they returned to their work. 

‘ Sell me your labour for three days, said 
Beaufoy. ‘ By that, I think, we shall see the 
end of the play. If not, we shall make an end. 
First spread me the bottom of that trench with 
dry brush. Let it bulk as big as you will — it 
will make the better heat, and in the burning 
it will go down to small compass. Then over 
that spread me a foot deep of sticks, from the 
thickness of a finger to the girth of a man’s arm. 
That done, we can wait. Let enough keep 
in the bend beyond the trench to check any 
thought of a rush. For twenty-four hours the 
rogues will sulk, then we shall see.’ 

So that day and the next night Beaufoy’s 
men, except for guarding the cave’s mouth, lay 
at ease, eating and drinking that which had 
been brought from Grandfrai. Only the men 
of the forest laboured, doing as they were 
ordered, and laying the wood ready for burning 
with the cunning that comes of a life’s toil. 
The next day they, too, lay at ease, or frolicked 
like schoolboys in the cool shade, and but one 
thing happened. 

The shadows had but just turned to the east 


88 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


when a fellow bearing a white rag upon a stick 
showed face at the cave’s mouth, and asked for 
a parley. 

‘ Parley from where you are ; you and I have 
no secrets,’ said Beaufoy. ‘ But if you want 
terms, I tell you flat I have no terms to offer. 
If you ask “ Why ?” let Grandfrai Church answer 
you. Now, then, parley.’ 

‘ We have a hostage,’ he began. 

‘Ay,’ broke in Beaufoy, ‘my Lord Prior, and 
I will trade three of you for him. But let the 
three be taken by lot. No chicane whereby 
the major scoundrel saves his neck, and the 
minor scoundrel goes hang. Three taken by 
lot, or none, and none for choice.’ 

‘ But the hostage is ours,’ said the fellow, 
‘and so it is ours to cry out the terms.’ 

‘ Chut !’ answered Beaufoy, ‘ ’tis you who are 
ours, every man jack of you, and it is mine to 
cry the terms.’ 

‘ But see, Monseigneur* — and in his eagerness 
the fellow would have come on but that Beaufoy 
waved him back — ‘ we are desperate men, and 
we can so maltreat ’ 

‘Chut!’ Beaufoy broke in a second time, ‘am 
I a man to be frighted by another man’s pains ? 
Three, by lot, or none, and get you back to 
your brother rogues and tell them so.’ 


BEAUFOY’S VENGEANCE 


89 


Later on the Seigneur was sorely blamed 
that he had not saved the Spaniard at any price, 
but he held himself acquitted. 

‘ What ? Let loose these devils on Angou- 
mois for the sake of a man who had no more of 
the true love of God in him, for all his priorship, 
than the very wretches who held him so hard ? 
No, by St. Francis, a thousand times no! If 
he were a good Christian, he died a martyr ; if 
he were not, why should I balk justice for his 
sake ?’ 

That night and the next day they were still 
cat and mouse, neither stirring. Then, when 
it was gone noon, Beaufoy bid the woodmen 
set the brush afire, and when it was well ablaze 
and flaring up to the very lip of the trench, he 
called for charcoal. 

‘ Bring,’ said he, ‘ as many stacks as will 
spread a layer above the faggots two feet deep. 
Set the cost down to Beaufoy, and have no 
fear for the credit. Presently that will sink to 
a foot and a half of red ash that will hold its 
glow and grilling heat for a week if need be. 
But, if I guess aright, there will be no such 
need.’ 

By nightfall what the Seigneur had said had 
come to pass. The trench-bottom was a sullen 
furious red that winked, and darkened, and 


90 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


glowed with every breath that blew across it. 
It was as if they had spread so much living 
lava drawn fresh from the heart of a volcano, 
and the wrath of the heat was as fiery as it was 
breathless. 

‘ Now,’ said Beaufoy, ‘ a sprinkling of light 
brush to make a covering and keep in the 
wickedness of the fire and yet mask its heat. 
That will give it a skin of gray ash, but so light 
that it will fly at a puff. Take, then, these 
cloths and stretch them over the charred sap- 
lings, fixing them with pegs tightly to the pit’s 
mouth. That done, bring the sods and spread 
them where they grew. No need to be over- 
nice, a scattering of leaves will make all good, 
and but add fuel to fire.’ 

‘ But, Seigneur,’ said Marmontel, ‘ they have 
horse.’ 

‘ Not so, man !’ — and Beaufoy laughed. ‘ Do 
you think they have starved these three days ? 
My word for it, they have no horse. My word 
for it, too, they will make their venture to-night 
when I withdraw the guard. For, look you, 
the longer they wait the weaker they grow ; 
and there is not a man of them yonder but 
would barter all the booty of Grandfrai for a 
draught of water. Ay, it will be to-night ; and 
yet again my word for it they will make their 


BEAUFOY’S VENGEANCE 


91 

dash all together, lest if they go in twos and 
threes they be all cut down, whereas in the 
bursting out of a score some half may break 
through and escape. Thou hast stout arms, 
Marmontel, but thy wit is fat.’ 

That ’ night Beaufoy withdrew his men by 
the narrow paths left along the face of the rock, 
and, hidden in the wood, set himself to watch, 
nor had his men need of orders to bid them 
stand sentinel. Not a soul of them all slept. 

The sky was clear, except for a rare drift of 
cloud, and if the moon set early, there were 
stars enough to show the bend and tremor of 
the grass as the rising wind swept round the 
face of the cliff, and enough, too, to show a 
solitary blur that suddenly grew black against 
the gray of the stone. The men of the cave 
were awake, and in an instant the lethargy that 
comes of long watching was flung off. 

‘ See ! said I not right ?’ — and Beaufoy 
gripped Marmontel hard by the shoulder. 
‘ One, two, three, four — there must be a dozen 
or more of them ! And yon gray shadow is 
the Spanish Prior. May the Lord have mercy 
upon him ! Look ! They are thicker now — a 
score maybe, and, faith of Beaufoy, the rest are 
not far behind ! They know there is a trap ; 
that is a thing of course ; but where is it ? and 


92 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


what? Ay, ay, that’s the rub. Besides, they 
have no choice ; it’s rush or starve. See, now 
they are in line! Their plans are as plain as 
noon — to make a burst on all sides at once. 
Let them do it, and, by St. Francis, we have 
them, every man 1 Pray the saints some 
blundering fool creep not too far out and mar 
the plan! No, no, they are off, Marmontel — 
they are off ! Three strides, and — ah ! My 
God ! my God !’ 

For an instant there was a rustle of grass as 
the many feet trampled its dryness, then the 
black line wavered, tottered, and went down in 
a red glare that shot across the night like a 
sudden angry dawn, a glare that shook and 
flickered and darkened in the tossing of many 
shadows, till swallowed up in a live flame as 
the dry grass of the sods caught fire and 
flared up with a roar overborne by a cry so 
fierce and so terrible that those who heard it 
stopped their ears, and, still staring, fell upon 
their knees. 

‘ May the Lord have mercy upon me if I 
wrongly took His vengeance into my own 
hands,’ said Beaufoy afterwards ; ‘ but let no 
man judge me who has not seen the sorrows 
of a Grandfrai.’ 


IV 


HOW OUR LADY OF SUCCOUR 
CAME TO BEAUFOY 

When English Talbot landed at Bordeaux in 
’51, France was stirred even to far-off Paris; 
and when the pocket-ridden patriotism of 
Guienne shouted a welcome to the buyers of 
its wines, France woke from the folly of placid 
contentment, and, for the fiftieth time in the 
century, made ready for war. With the feeble 
skirmishes and feints of battle in the south this 
history has nothing to do, nor with the part 
played in them by Raimond de Beaufoy. He 
bore his share of danger and privation as was 
his wont, and if the winter was frittered away 
in little better than gasconades, it was none of 
his fault. The story is rather of his home- 
coming in the summer of ’52, and of the foe he 
found encamped within the four corners of the 
Suzerainty. If any man doubts that he and 
his did their duty against the Englishmen, let 


94 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 

him find his answer in this : whereas they rode 
out a full score, they came hqme but fifteen, 
and scarcely one of them a whole man. 

As they rode north they travelled by way of 
Vaucourt — a kind of temporary appanage to 
Beaufoy because of Denise de Vaucourt’s 
minority — and Marmontel would have had his 
Seigneur halt and rest. 

‘ It is but five hours to nightfall,’ he urged, 
‘and with the moon in its last quarter, the 
woods will be as black as a burnt-out charcoal- 
furnace. Let us bide. Seigneur, and push on 
to-morrow.’ 

But Beaufoy would have none of the sug- 
gestion. Since he had lost a wife at Vaucourt 
he had hated the gray old pile, with its sinister 
reminders of fire and sack still smirching its 
face — hated it, be it understood, less for the 
loss of the wife than for the wound to his 
vanity. Wives were to be had for the asking ; 
but to fling his handkerchief and see the girl 
catch another man’s in place of his had galled 
him, and thenceforward, so far as women went, 
he had played the cynic, pretending there was 
neither virtue nor faith in their whole genera- 
tion. 

‘ Ride on,’ he answered the squire curtly. 

‘ Five hours will take us three parts through 



HE HALF DREW HIS REIN AS HE SPOKE. 



OUR LADY OF SUCCOUR 


95 


the woods, and, at the worst, we can shelter at 
Lervins. Vaucourt has over-many ghosts to 
please my taste. Why, man ’ — and, turning in 
his saddle the better to scan the castle, he half 
drew his rein as he spoke — ‘ those upper rooms 
are alive with owls, bats, and the Lord knows 
what vermin.’ 

‘Better the vermin of Vaucourt than the 
vermin of Lervins,’ said Marmontel bluntly ; 
‘ and as for ghosts, I reckon the living are more 
to be feared than the dead. Lervins had no 
good repute a twelvemonth back. What will 
it be after a year’s rioting, and the Seigneur 
absent 

‘ What ! are you coward ?’ 

‘ Faith, Seigneur, I never knew a man hurt 
by an honest love for a whole skin, and it’s late 
in the day for us two to call coward to each 
other. Have your way ; nevertheless, who- 
ever sleeps at Lervins to-night, I will not.’ 

Thenceforward they rode up and down the 
slopes in silence, halting only once as the sun 
slipped behind the trees and the weary sultri- 
ness of the day slowly lifted ; then, supper 
ended, the beasts washed down and lightly 
watered from a brook hard by, they again rode 
on, strength and vitality coming tingling back 
with the growing freshness of the night. 


96 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


In the thick shadows of the trees dusk fell 
swiftly, and the sun was no more than a hand’s 
breadth below the rim of the world when the 
grayness shrivelled into gloom and the full dark 
was upon them. Could the squire have had 
his way, they would have camped there and 
then ; but Beaufoy was obstinate, and pushed 
on. A foot’s pace was their best speed, and 
no man trusted to his own skill in guidance. 
Had he done so, it had been to his cost, for he 
would have found timber within the first furlong. 
As it was, the gray loom of the bare trunks 
stole by them no further than an arm’s length 
off. 

Whether even their beasts’ instinct was at 
fault, or the way longer than they had supposed, 
the shadows of morning had come and gone 
before the softening of the gloom ahead fore- 
told a clearing, within which lay the handful of 
huts called Lervins. With the light Mar- 
montel’s scruples had vanished, and now he 
pushed on gaily. Lervins meant food, drink, 
and a stretching of cramped limbs, and a nest 
of cut-throats had no terrors for him under the 
honest sun. 

Once inside the clearing, he slackened speed. 
Men have no liking for being caught napping, 
and a warning sometimes wins a welcome. 


OUR LADY OF SUCCOUR 


97 


‘ Hulloa !’ he shouted, his powerful voice 
echoing in the hollows of the wood, ‘ Lervins, 
hulloa ! hulloa ! My faith ! but they sleep like 
the dead !’ he went on to Flemish Peter, who 
rode on his flank. ‘ There must have been 
better liquor flowing last night than goes to a 
goat - skin bottle. Come, both together — 
hulloa ! hulloa !’ 

They might have spared their breath : 
Lervins was both deaf and dumb. Then, as 
they watched, wondering and a little afraid — 
for this was the charcoal season, when Lervins 
was wont to hum with rough life — a thing hap- 
pened that made Marmontel jerk his beast back 
upon its haunches, and 'start up in his stirrup, 
gasping. Out from a doorway a long, lean 
gray head was thrust, and a starved wolf stole 
out into the sunlight, blinking, and at its heels 
there trotted a half-grown cub. For an instant 
it stood snarling, then the two slipped like 
shadows behind the house and were lost, 

‘ Saints ! did you see that ?’ cried the squire, 
flinging his arm out stiff before him, ‘Wolves 
couched at Lervins ! I had sooner have seen 
the glint of English lance-heads than the white 
of their teeth. The place is a tomb.’ 

Driving his spurs home, he went forward at 
a gallop, hard pressed by Flemish Peter, with 

7 


98 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


the Seigneur and the rest following more 
leisurely. Of the prowlers of Lervins they 
had seen nothing, and Marmontel’s actions 
had been to them those of a madman. 

But for all his excitement and haste, he had 
a method with him. Once within twenty paces 
of the huts, he checked his beast and swung 
himself to the ground, stiffly enough, for years 
and leagues get the better of a man sorely ; 
then, hooking his reins across his arm, he went 
forward to the nearest doorway cautiously and 
with circumspection, since there might be a 
four-legged tenant within which his shout had 
left unaroused. 

At the threshold Marmontel paused, peering, 
then he drew back, shading his eyes with his 
hand. The sun was already ablaze in the 
glade, and the glare dazzled him. A charcoal- 
burner’s hut was but a squalid sight at the best 
— grimy, as became its owner’s trade, and 
miserably poor because of the pittance that 
trade earned. That was of course. Therefore, 
it was neither the squalor nor the poverty that 
Marmontel’s gaze sought for as the shadows 
took shape, but rather something which pre- 
sently he found. Tenants there were, but let 
the world call as it might, they would pay no 
heed. Then, having found them, he slipped 


OUR LADY OF SUCCOUR 


99 

the reins down to one hand, and beckoned with 
the other to Flemish Peter. 

‘ Look !’ he said in a hoarse whisper. ‘ Is it 
murder ?’ And Beaufoy rode up with his men 
to find the two staring silently and with intent 
faces into the black vault of the open doorway. 
Window there was none, and as the hut faced 
to the north no sunlight fell within. 

What they saw was this : In the centre a 
rude table with a wooden settle at either side 
of it : beyond these, and along the further wall, 
a heavy layer of bracken and beaten straw was 
spread ; on this three men were stretched, dead, 
and dead in an agony, for their limbs were 
crook’d and twisted as if in the worst extremity 
of mortal pain. In one corner stood a huge 
cooking-pot. 

‘ What fool’s comedy is this ?’ cried Beaufoy 
from behind. ‘ If there is aught inside, have it 
out that we may see it.’ 

‘We have seen it often enough. Seigneur,’ 
answered Marmontel with grim humour, but 
never turning his head as he spoke. ‘ Often 
enough, but never quite like this. It is death ; 
murder, I think.’ 

While the squire was speaking, Flemish 
Peter had dropped his reins — small chance of 
his beast breaking away after eighteen hours of 

7—2 


. LofC. 


lOO THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


a march — and entered the hut. After the first 
suddenness of the shock another man’s murder 
had no terrors for him. 

‘Stand aside from the door,’ he said, as he 
went down on one knee in the bracken and 
bent over the nearest of the three ; ‘ the light 

is dim enough ’ He stopped short, as if 

the words were choked in his throat, and those 
without saw him bend lower, staring hard, then 
leap to his feet and run madly for the open air. 
‘ The plague ! the plague 1’ he cried, catching 
at his beast’s bridle. ‘ The Lord have mercy 
on us all ! The plague is in Beaufoy !’ 

Swinging himself into his saddle, he sat a 
moment breathless, and swaying like a drunken 
man, then with a cry of ‘ The plague ! the 
plague!’ he galloped hard for the woods, any- 
where away from Lervins. 

‘ After the fool and have him back !’ called 
Beaufoy ; ‘ but thou, Marmontel, stay where 
thou art till we hear more of this thing, though 
God grant the fellow lied,’ 

Flemish Peter’s breakaway availed him 
little. In his terror he swerved to this side 
and that, holding no true course, and so inside 
of a furlong he was headed. A glance at his 
face gave, at least, evidence of his good faith, 
for no simulated terror could have aged him 


OUR LADY OF SUCCOUR 


lOI 


ten years in fewer minutes. The bronze was 
wiped from his cheeks as breath is wiped from 
steel, and the hand that gripped the reins shook 
as with a palsy. 

‘ The place is accursed I’ he began, not wait- 
ing for Beaufoy to question him. ‘ Let us 
begone while there is time, Seigneur, if indeed 
there is still time. Time! Saints forgive me, 
but I’m done with time. Three days to die in 1 
Lord God, what’s three days to a man like me I’ 
And he fell to chattering. 

‘ Come, man, keep your wits in hand,’ cried 
Beaufoy sternly. ‘ What wild talk is this of the 
plague, and how could the plague come to 
Lervins ?’ 

‘ Of whys and hows I know nought, Seigneur,’ 
answered the other doggedly, ‘ but the plague 
it is. Who sees it once knows it twice.’ 

‘ Is this certain, fellow ?’ 

‘ Certain ?’ And in his contempt for the 
Seigneur’s doubt his voice settled down to 
firmness again. ‘ Certain ? Look at his neck 
and see 1 Why, he has that under his jaw.’ 
And Flemish Peter held up a huge clenched 
fist. ‘ I know the marks, and a loathsome sight 
they are. For the Lord’s sake, let us begone I’ 

‘ The plague here Then may God help 
Beaufoy ! Let us ride home, men.’ 


102 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


And so it came that the Seigneur found the 
enemy within his gates harder to fight than the 
foe without. 

It was a dismal home-coming. Marmontel 
would have had him ride by the villages if for 
nothing else but to get news ; but Beaufoy was 
obstinate. 

‘ We shall get news soon enough,’ he said 
bitterly. ‘ Whoever heard that evil tidings 
lagged on the road ? There were we no more 
than fairly in the Seigneurie and the thing flies 
in our face. Ride home, man, and be in no 
haste to sup sorrow.’ 

So they skirted the towns, and shunned even 
the far-apart shepherds’ booths. Nay, they 
avoided the very peasants labouring in the 
fields, as if the Seigneur were a child that hid 
his head and said that there was no evil because 
he saw none. But to one and all there was 
a sullen tranquillity in the air, the hot, calm 
certainty of storm that comes before the 
thunder. 

Once within sight of the castle walls, Mar- 
montel plucked up spirit. 

‘ Shall I ride on. Seigneur, and bring them 
word that ’ 

‘ Bide thou behind,’ answered Beaufoy curtly. 
‘ I will have no man schooling them to say this 


OUR LADY OF SUCCOUR 


103 


or that. Let them tell the truth, and neither 
more nor less, though it be as bitter as worm- 
wood.’ 

So, as became his right, Beaufoy rode under 
the portcullis of the great gate at the head of 
his troop, and there was none to say nay or to 
give welcome. To all appearance the Chateau 
was as bereft of life as Lervins, a thing that 
roused the Seigneur’s wrath and set his blood 
coursing. 

‘ By St. Francis !’ he swore between his teeth, 

‘ plague or no plague, I will teach the knaves to 
keep better watch than this, though they keep 
it staggering !’ 

Even as he spoke a small side-door was 
pushed open, and a woman’s face looked out, 
stared an instant and disappeared, and from 
within there arose a sudden clatter of life. Into 
the open courtyard they scrambled : maids, 
lackeys, and men-at-arms, and stood in a group 
under the shadow of the east tower, shamefaced, 
silent and expectant. Nor were their anticipa- 
tions disappointed. Of the Seigneur’s anger 
they knew something of old, but if they thought 
they had plumbed its depths and measured its 
strength, they learned their ignorance that first 
hour of his home-coming, and the fierceness of 
his stern wrath was their best medicine. 


104 the beaufoy romances 


‘ Now, begone to your work, every one of 
you,’ he said sharply, when his tongue had 
lashed them into life and spirit. ‘ For this 
time I let the fault pass, but not twice. As 
for you ’ — and lowering his voice, he turned to 
the fifteen grouped closely behind him — ‘not 
a word of Lervins. If they have tales to tell, 
listen and make light of them, but sift the 
truth. And do you, Marmontel, come to me 
in the justice-room after the night-watch is 
set. To leave the great gate gaping, the care- 
less rogues! By St. Francis! if Talbot had 
marched this way, Beaufoy had been his for 
the asking.’ 

It was with a sour mood as companion that 
the Seigneur waited in the dusk the coming of 
Marmontel. Vexation was piled upon vexation. 
The pestilence was evil enough ; but what for 
the moment touched him nearer, because it 
touched his pride, was the flatness of his home- 
coming. Here had he been away these months 
on the King’s business, and at their end to find 
nothing better than the cold welcome of a 
beggarly outcast ! Was the spirit of Beaufoy 
wrecked because a dozen churls were dead of 
the plague? And as he asked himself the 
question, Marmontel came with the answer : 

‘It is a pitiful business, Seigneur, a most 


OUR LADY OF SUCCOUR 105 


pitiful business. The poor folks are clean 
demented. You have seen the panic of a rout 
Men flinging away arms, clothing, what-not, in 
their unreason, and fleeing they know not where, 
so long as it is but flight ? That is Beaufoy. 
From the towns they crowd to the fields, and 
from the fields to the towns, and so contagion 
spreads. From east to west there is but one 
thought, one theme, one terror — the plague ! 
the plague ! the plague ! They breed the 
sickness in themselves with their fears, and 
then die of despair. Turn their minds to 
other things. Seigneur, or Beaufoy is lost.’ 

‘ Ay, ay, I see, poor souls — I see. What 
shall it be now, Marmontel ? A hunt 

‘ By your leave. Seigneur,’ answered the 
Squire, with a laugh that, clearer than a curse, 
told of his bitterness of soul. ‘ That you 
understand the leading of men, I grant ; but, 
by your leave, I say you know little of the 
temper of men who wrestle three hopeless days 
with death, and then go down to the grave 
howling. To the grave ? No, to bare earth — 
and rot. A hunt ? As well say hang a score 
to cheer the rest ! My faith ! I think the score 
would thank you, for it would bring the end 
the sooner! No, no. Seigneur; they want a 
man among them to hearten them.’ 


io6 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


‘ A man ?’ said Beaufoy. ‘ What of the 
monks ? Where are they ?’ 

‘ The monks are there, and are men, truly ; 
since they fear like men and die like sheep with 
the murrain, and yet hold by their posts. Oh, 
ay, the monks are men ; but it is not men they 
need, but a man. Go yourself. Seigneur.’ 

‘ What ! I ? And the plague raging 

‘ Ay, Seigneur, you, and because the plague 
is raging. Who could hearten them like 
Raimond de Beaufoy ? If that same rout was 
afoot, and you turned bare-fisted on the pursuit, 
is there a Beaufoy ’s man that would not follow 
you back even to the pit’s- mouth ? Not one !’ 

‘ That,’ said Beaufoy, ‘ would be but a man’s 

duty and a man’s risk, but this Let it 

rest for the moment. What of Mesnil, Mont- 
brion, Charnex ?’ 

‘ The best hope is that rumour lies,’ answered 
Marmontel bluntly. ‘ In their terror of solitude, 
the people have flocked to the towns. Who 
can blame them, poor souls ? To fight the 
battle of death alone, and lose it alone, is fear- 
some enough, without having the plague added. 
The towns, therefore, are packed. The monks 
do their best ; but what avails a monk against 
panic ? They say he but does his cloth’s duty, 
and no more. It is a man they need.' 


OUR LADY OF SUCCOUR 107 


‘ And how,’ asked Beaufoy hesitatingly — 
‘ how does it take them ? I mean, how long ? 
Come, man, you understand !’ 

Just what Marmontel answered need not be 
set down here. He told the truth, hiding 
nothing of the loathsomeness, of the sly cunning 
and lying in wait, of the sharp agony and 
swift suddenness of the collapse — all these he 
told, and in full clearness of detail. If the 
Seigneur faced the enemy, he should face him 
open-eyed. 

‘ But,’ he added, ‘ worse than all that is the 
miserable inertness and the terror of anticipa- 
tion. It is there they need a man to show 
them better things, and that to die like men — 
if so it must be — is better than some sort of 
living. Not one of themselves, nor a monk; 
but a man. Seigneur, a man.’ 

‘ Ay, I know,’ answered Beaufoy, speaking 
like a man uncertain, and not looking the other 
in the face. ‘ Let it rest till to-morrow. Then 
we shall see.’ 

But when the morrow came, he let it rest 
for* that day, too, and contented himself with 
sending food and drink and cordials : the plague 
was the plague. Had it been a foe he could 
have warmed his blood against — English 
Talbot himself and his whole backing — he 


io8 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


could have cried ‘ Coward !’ upon himself to 
have held back an hour ; but a foe that, all 
unseen, slew by night or noonday, and filched 
the courage from a man as well as his life, 
that needed a thought. 

On the second day Marmontel came to him 
again, and from the fire in his eyes it was plain 
that the squire was much stirred. 

‘ A miracle. Seigneur, a miracle !’ he cried. 
‘ Our Lady of Succour has appeared at Mesnil. 
Michel Bische has run up with the news, 
panting.’ 

‘ Miracle ? Our Lady of Succour ? What 
fresh madness is this, Marmontel ?’ 

‘ No madness. Seigneur, but God’s truth,’ 
urged the squire. ‘ Michel saw her go from 
house to house with his own eyes. ’Tis a 
miracle, I say, and the saving of Beaufoy.’ 

‘ Send the fool to me,’ said Beaufoy sternly, 
‘and hold thou thy tongue meanwhile. Who 
am I, or what is Mesnil, that a miracle should 
come our way ?’ 

But Michel Bische clung fast to his tale. 

‘ It was an hour past. Seigneur, and except 
for a moan or a cry, all Mesnil was dumb in 
the heat. God keep us from such heat ; it was 
like the blast of a baker’s oven, and not so 
much as a dog was astir in it but myself. I 


OUR LADY OF SUCCOUR 109 


was in the middle of the path, Seigneur, as far 
as might be from the houses — there is less 
danger that way — when I heard the creak of 
a door behind, and looked back across my 
shoulder, so, and she was there ; I swear it, 
she was there !’ 

‘ Who, fool ?’ 

‘ Our Lady, Seigneur, Our Lady of Succour, 
and all in white, with the hood about her head, 
her robe across the shoulder, and the blue band 
of the Madonna, as she stands in the church at 
Granfrai.’ 

‘ What next ?’ 

* I went down on my knees in the dust, 
Seigneur, and when I looked again she had 
crossed the road to Gil Troyes, where four lie 
dying and two dead. ’Tis the filthiest spot in 
Mesnil. Then I ran here as fast as feet could 
carry me.’ 

‘ Did I not tell you. Seigneur ?’ cried Mar- 
montel. ‘ Is it not truth ?’ 

And for answer Beaufoy said curtly : 

‘ Go thou and get ready the horses. We 
will ride to Mesnil and see for ourselves.’ 

Neither then nor any time afterwards could 
Raimond de Beaufoy have said what was 
clearly in his mind. To him Beaufoy was the 
pivot of the world, and therefore, if such a 


no THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


manifestation were to be given, there was no 
place more appropriate. But he was little 
tinged with what may be called the religiosity 
of the age, the wide- throated capacity for 
swallowing theological camels without a strain, 
and so looked askance at marvels. On the 
whole, he had that commonest of minds of any 
age — the lazy inertness that neither accep nor 
rejects. 

Only once he spoke, and even then it had 
nothing to do with Michel’s tale. It was as 
they rode down the slope of the hill that over- 
tops Mesnil. 

‘ Who are these camped yonder beyond the 
river ?’ 

And Marmontel, shading his eyes, shook his 
head. 

‘ Strangers, Seigneur, but I know not who. 
There are five horses tethered there in the 
shade. Shall I push on and ask ?’ 

‘ No, they can wait. This other presses 
more nearly.’ 

Mesnil they found as Michel Bische had de- 
scribed, silent and breathless. The dust was 
fetlock-deep, and at every beat of the hoof it 
rose in a fine cloud, hot, dry, and pungent, but 
to Beaufoy the muffled tread had a subtle sound 
of death. That death lay to right and left he 


OUR LADY OF SUCCOUR iii 


knew ; and as they halted midway along the 
one straggling street, he cursed his folly for 
having thrust himself into danger for a fool’s 
tale. Nay, death lay even nearer than behind 
these scorched walls, whose radiated heat burnt 
out the vitality of the air. Three several places 
Beaufoy’s folk lay where they had fallen on the 
roadway, and more than one of the dried-up 
gardens had a tenant whose sleep not even the 
fierceness of the sun could break. Life there 
was none ; except that once two gray-frocked 
brothers of St. Francis passed, staring hard to 
see the Seigneur de Beaufoy in such a place, 
but white and frightened, and with no sign 
about them of having seen a vision. 

‘ Well, what next ?’ Sick at heart and shaken 
in nerve, he turned sharply on Michel Bische, 
who all the way from Beaufoy had trotted 
sturdily at their heels. ‘Where is this Gil 
Troyes ?’ 

For answer Michel Bische went ahead slowly, 
and for all that Our Lady of Succour was 
present in Mesnil, the Seigneur noted that he 
rigidly held to the middle of the path. Michel 
Bische did not believe in tempting Providence. 
Fifty paces further on he stopped. 

‘ There, Seigneur.’ 

It was a plain, dingy house of weather-stained 


112 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


wood, as was all Mesnil, the huge projecting 
eaves of the sharp-pitched roof giving it an 
overweighted clumsy, appearance. Five steps 
led up to the porch, from which there hung the 
withered shoots of some creeping plant. 

‘ Then, my friend, do thou hold these, and, 
Marmontel, do you come with me.’ 

Handing the reins to Bische, Beaufoy turned 
into the scorched garden that fronted Gil 
Troyes’ house, and for reasons best known to 
himself he made such haste that the squire had 
much ado to follow hard behind him. With 
his foot on the second of Gil Troyes’ five steps, 
the door opened, and, for all his haste, he 
stopped, staring at the vision set in the black 
cavity. 

‘ Saints !’ tis the Madonna herself!’ he heard 
Marmontel gasp ; and looking back, he saw the 
squire on his knees on the path, bonnetless, and 
his eyes starting like a crab’s. As for Michel 
Bische, he had flung the reins to the winds and 
was face-flat in the dust, mumbling he knew 
not what incoherent prayers. 

The door had opened inwards, and framed 
in the empty space was a woman, the spotless 
white of whose robe shone dazzling in the sun. 
From throat to instep there was but one line of 
colour to break the glistening purity, a belt of 



“ A WOMAN, THE SPOTLESS WHITE OF WHOSE ROBE SHONE 

DAZZLING IN THE SUN.” 










OUR LADY OF SUCCOUR 


113 

palest blue binding the waist. Round the head 
w^as wound a white shawl, its end falling in a 
curve upon the shoulder. 

For a full minute Beaufoy stood staring as 
hard as the squire, then he cried : 

‘ What ? Mademoiselle de Salice here, and 
Mesnil no better than a pest-house It is pure 
madness I’ 

To Bonne de Salice the meeting had been as 
unexpected as to the Seigneur, and as she looked 
down from her vantage-height upon the three 
men, her pale face flushed red in its setting of 
white draperies. 

‘ Oh, believe me — believe me. Seigneur de 
Beaufoy, I had no knowledge that you were 
home from the South. I would never have 
dared ’ 

‘ What !’ cried Beaufoy, laughing as he had 
not laughed these three days ; ‘ am I a worse 
terror than the plague? You are frank. Made- 
moiselle Bonne.’ Then he remembered the 
sorrows of Beaufoy, and the jesting smile passed 
to a stern gravity. ‘ This is no place for 
women !’ he said, mounting the steps as he 
spoke, ‘ least of all for a frail woman delicately 
nurtured. How could I look my old comrade 
and friend, your father, in the face if — if — if 
aught happened i*’ 


8 


1 14 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


‘ Then what is woman’s work, Seigneur de 
Beaufoy, if not to nurse the sick, comfort the 
sorrowful, and make smooth the rough places, 
whether they be of life or of death ? There in 
the South you and my father took your lives in 
your hands a dozen times, I make no doubt. 
That was fighting France’s battles, and men 
would have called you “ coward ” had you hung 
back. Isa woman’s life so much more precious 
than a man’s that she must not fight France’s 
battles in her turn .>* I had cried shame upon 
myself had I hung back when Beaufoy was 
stricken, for is not Beaufoy part of France’s 

life’s blood ? Only, only ’ And again she 

went red as a rose, and fell a-stammering. ‘ I 
had no thought that you were in the Suzerainty, 
or I might have let you fight your own battles 
at home, like a brave man, as you would have 
fought them abroad.’ 

And whether it was the fire of the sun or 
the flush of shame, Beaufoy ’s face went redder 
than her own when he remembered how he had 
held back from the danger which she had 
faced without a second thought. 

‘ But to face this place alone 

‘ No, no,’ she cried eagerly, ‘ not alone. My 
people are camped beyond the river there, and 
my women with them. They — I do not judge 


OUR LADY OF SUCCOUR 115 


them, Seigneur — they were afraid, and he who 
fears is best away from the plague.’ 

‘ And you have no fear ?’ 

* Why should I ? God is as near at Mesnil 
as He is at Salice. There is loathing that one 
cannot help ; but in the pity for the poor folks’ 
agony and terror it is forgotten. Give them 
courage and you give them life.’ 

Which was Marmontel’s theory ; and in his 
heart Raimond de Beaufoy swore that if their 
Seigneur’s presence could hearten-up the people 
of Mesnil, and so rout the enemy, heartened 
they would be, come what might of it. 

Thenceforward they forgot they were man 
and woman, if, indeed. Bonne de Salice had 
ever remembered it, except in her first startled 
maidenliness. Night by night she retired to 
her tent under the trees beyond the river, while 
Beaufoy took his six hours’ rest at the Chiteau. 
In vain he had proposed to reverse the arrange- 
ments, seeing that she had her own women 
with her, and for her sake he would gladly 
have slept in the bare dust of Mesnil ; but she 
was firm, and when he saw the thing troubled 
her, he left off urging. By day they worked 
together, Marmontel, the monks of Grandfrai, 
and a few others who were fired by their 
example helping them. Wooden pest-houses 

8—2 


ii6 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


were hastily run up, rough and comfortless 
enough, but still places of isolation. Whole- 
some, well-cooked food was given, and such 
drugs as, out of their ignorance, the monks 
prescribed. But, chiefest of all. Bonne de 
Salice moved among the stricken folk with a 
gentle, calm assurance, as if there was neither 
death nor danger in all Beaufoy. 

Nor were the ministrations confined to 
Mesnil. Montbrion, Charnex, and every village 
and hamlet had their turn, till at last the plague 
was stayed, and the day came when even Bonne 
de Salice thought it no sin to say, ‘ We may 
rest to-morrow.’ 

But with the morrow a change came to her 
and to Raimond de Beaufoy. The fellowship 
born of the days of heat and struggle was gone. 
Their minds had been so full of thought, their 
hearts so full of care, the crying needs of others 
had so possessed them, that there had been no 
room for self. But all that had passed, and 
into the void was born — especially on the 
woman’s part — a sudden and acute conscious- 
ness. Surely this thing had been unwomanly, 
and the doing of it had shamed her in his eyes ; 
surely, too — and the very thought made her 
quake — she had shown him in these days that 
which was a reproach to confess even to herself! 


OUR LADY OF SUCCOUR 117 

So, when Raimond de Beaufoy rode into camp, 
he found the tent struck, the pack-horses laden, 
and Bonne de Salice a full league on her road 
home. For a moment the Seigneur sat gnaw- 
ing his lip ; then with his spurs he savaged his 
beast as he had never savaged it in the heat of 
battle, and made straight for Salice. 

‘ Michel Bische told more truth than he 
thought,’ said Marmontel to himself as he rode 
slowly homewards. ‘ She is our Lady of Suc- 
cour, and none other. That she may be our 
Lady of Beaufoy I pray the Saints ! Give us 
your aid, good St. Francis, and I vow you the 
tallest candle ever seen in the Seigneurie !’ 

Which vow was honestly paid within a twelve- 
month. 


HOW THE KING CAME TO 
BEAUFOY 


When the Count of Dunois, standing by the 
grave of Charles the Seventh in 1461, said, out 
of the bitterness of his frosted ambition, ‘ There 
is a new master in France ; now let every man 
see to himself!’ Wisdom was justified of her 
child. Never was there such a tearing down 
from high places ; never such a shredding and 
a tattering of hard-earned honours. They flew 
this way and that, as feathers are sent flying 
from a pigeon when a hawk has pounced. 

Jouvenelle, the Chancellor, lost his place ; 
Sancerre might be no longer Grand Admiral ; 
De Lhoeac was stripped of his Marshcil’s 
baton ; Du Chastel found his Mastership of 
the Horse given to another ; the Governorship 
of Guienne was wrenched from the grip of the 
Due de Bourbon. As for chamberlains and 
counsellors of State, a man was happy if he 


THE KING COMES TO BEAUFOY 119 


kept his head and his lands ; his office was the 
sure spoil of another. Louis the Eleventh 
had a long memory, and, as King, knew 
how to revenge the insults that had em- 
bittered the Dauphin. Besides, where men 
are to be bought, someone must pay the 
price. 

Tlie marvel was that in such a crashing of 
reputations Raimond de Beaufoy held his place. 
No man had been more loyal to the late King, 
and to be loyal to Charles was to be traitor 
to Louis. Yet Beaufoy prospered, and it 
must have been that the cruel, treacherous, 
cold heart of the new King harboured some 
grateful memory of what had befallen five 
years before. That Angoumois stared to 
see Beaufoy confirmed in his Suzerainty was 
no wonder ; but Angoumois knew nothing of 
the King’s secrets, and the Seigneur was no 
man to blab. 

The story dated from 1456, the year that 
Louis, exiled these ten years to Dauphiny, 
sought to build up for himself a kingdom in 
the South, and was not too nice in his methods. 
This great lord was tampered with, that one 
bribed ; the Church snared with specious pro- 
mises, endowments, immunities, jurisdictions — 
things dear to hearts that have abjured the 


120 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


petty pomps of the world ; while a university 
set up at Vienne argued to the learned the 
broad mind of the would-be King. 

Rumour had it — and with more truth than 
customary — that, not content with his province, 
the Dauphin was spreading his lures north 
and west, and at last Charles became alarmed. 
Abandoning his beloved gardens, he marched 
south with the avowed intention of crushing 
the rebel once and for all, son though he was. 
Between the death of Louis and the dismember- 
ment of the kingdom there was no room for 
choice. Charles had a second son, but no 
second crown. Down through the Orleanais 
he swept into Berry, and thence to Poitou, 
avoiding La Marche as tainted with the 
Dauphin’s heresy. From Poitou to Angoumois 
is but a step, and presently Beaufoy was drawn 
into the ferment. 

It was a mid-August day that the King’s 
letter, written by Dunois, the Grand Chamber- 
lain, reached the Seigneur, and small thanks he 
gave the messenger who brought it. 

‘ How the pest am I to quarter three hundred 
men in Beaufoy ?’ he cried, slapping his clenched 
hand with the folded paper. ‘ As reasonably 
might Egypt cry “ Come !” to the locusts that 
sweep it bare. I am the King’s servant, and 


THE KING COMES TO BEAUFOY 121 


my poor house is his since he so wills ; but 
three hundred of a troop is a heavy tax on a 
man’s goodwill. What is that, my friend ? an 
honour ? God keep us from all such honours, 
for a man would buy them dearly at a crown a 
bushel. Honour, forsooth ! — such honour as 
they gave King Martin of Yvetdt, the honour 
of eating me out of house and home, the honour 
of starving for half a year that others may go 
full-fed a day ! Has thy wisdom aught else to 
say, my friend ?' 

‘ As I left the camp, Seigneur, Monsieur de 
Chabannes stopped me, and bade me give you 
this.’ 

Fumbling in the pouch at his girdle, he pulled 
out a paper sealed both back and front — a scrap, 
no more, unaddressed, but endorsed, ‘ Secret, 
and in haste.’ 

‘ Anthony of Chabannes ! Of a good Angou- 
mois stock is Chabannes, and a sure friend, for 
all that he is Bretagne born,’ said Beaufoy, 
breaking open the seals. ‘ I would trust Cha- 
bannes with Now, God give me patience, 

but this is too much ! Some of you there see 
to this fellow’s comfort, and do you, Marmontel, 
hearken : “ The King fears Louis ; walk softly 
for Beaufoy’s sake.” By St. Francis, they 
know in Paris how to make men traitors ! 


122 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


Link an arm in theirs, and smilingly pick their 
pocket as you walk. There you have it. 
“ Come, dear friend, and sup,” said the fox to 
the goose. If it were but Charles and Louis 
and not France herself that would suffer, then, 

faith of Beaufoy, I might But, no, no ; it 

is France, it is France, and so I must keep the 
peace and walk softly. Now I understand the 
three hundred men. They are not so much to 
honour Charles as to dishonour Beaufoy. Walk 
softly ? Why, so I will ; but a plague on all 
crooked policies !’ — and he flung out of the 
room in a rage. 

Thenceforward for three days there was not 
a soul in Beaufoy, save the year-old boy in his 
cradle, but lived a bustling life. That lackeys, 
scullions, and cooks should have their hands 
full was of course, since the roasting, boiling, 
and baking was prodigious, though the lists of 
fish, flesh, fowl, and conceits of pastry so care- 
fully recorded by the chronicler of the day may 
be left out of the story. For all his wrath, the 
Seigneur had no mind to shame the hospitality 
of Beaufoy. But the Seigneur found work for 
those whose trade was arms, and for those 
three days a dozen of his most trusted men 
were here and there through the Seigneurie on 
their master’s business, while their fellows who 


THE KING COMES TO BEAUFOY 123 


remained at the castle slaved over the arms of 
all, and of more than all. 

Five-and-forty there were who drew Beau- 
foy’s pay, and yet in those three days no less 
than ten-score stands of arms were cleaned, 
tested, and made ready. 

‘ The odds are still three to two,’ said Beau- 
foy as he saw his men ride out on that third 
day with swords, pikes, lances, and what-not 
that did not belong to them — ‘ three to two ; 
but the surprise counts for something, so we 
will call it an even match.’ 

Then, having prepared within and without, 
he set himself to rest. But for all his labour, 
rest was still far from him. As he sat on a 
bench in the great justice-room at the fall of 
dusk that third day, Marmontel, his squire, 
came to him in something of a pucker. 

‘ There are three without,’ he said, ‘ who say 
that, will he, nill he, they must have speech 
with the Seigneur de Beaufoy. I have lied, 
and they would none of my lies ; I have 
told them truth — in a measure — and they 
say ’ 

‘ You have not told of the coming of the 
King, blockhead i*’ cried Beaufoy. 

‘ No, Seigneur, no; I said truth in a measure, 
but not all the truth.’ 


124 the beaufoy romances 


‘ Then bid them begone with their will he, 
nill he ; let them go as they came. This is no 
time for strangers.’ 

‘They came from the south,’ said Marmontel, 

‘ and if we shut the door in their faces, there is 
nowhere for them to go but to some peasant’s 
hut. That, by your leave. Seigneur, would not 
sort with Beaufoy’s plans.’ 

‘ Hum !’ said Beaufoy, rubbing his chin. 

‘ Beaufoy’s business will be none the better of 
clacking tongues. So far, thou art right. The 
Lord knows who they may be. Since we have 
no choice, Marmontel, let us do them and our- 
selves a kindness. To please another to your 
own profit is true policy. Bid them welcome. 
Show them all courtesy, and say that since 
they desire to see Raimond de Beaufoy, he 
will do himself the honour of supping with 
them. Madame, my wife, they must excuse. 
She has that before her which might well try a 
stronger woman, for ’tis no light thing to play 
hostess to a King who comes to cut your hus- 
band’s throat. Bid them enter, Marmontel, 
and with the more smoothness that you have 
been rough in the past. In these times we 
must keep a frank hand for the mammon of 
unrighteousness. ’ 

Later, as Beaufoy was changing his rougher 


THE KING COMES TO BEAUFOY 125 


dress for a garb more nice in its courtesy, 
Marmontel again came to him. 

‘ If you had searched for a week, Seigneur,’ 
said he, ‘ you could have hit on nothing more 
to their taste than that you sup alone with 
them. If a man cannot read men after three 
score years of life, he never will, and my word 
for it, these three have something to say beyond 
the common. You are no drinker. Seigneur, 
but at supper water is a cool counsellor.’ 

Raimond de Beaufoy was too wise a man to 
set his dignity against honest frankness in a 
man who loved him. 

‘ So ?’ he said gravely, putting his hand on 
the other’s shoulder. ‘ Beyond the common ? 
Why beyond the common ?’ 

‘ Because, Seigneur, when I made excuses 
for my lady, one of them, a meagre chit of a 
man and the youngest of the three, said softly, 
“The saints be praised !” and mumbled to 
himself as a’ man might in church. No, Seig- 
neur, no,’ he went on hastily, as Beaufoy’s face 
darkened, ‘ not said with offence, but forced out 
of him as it were by some relief of fear. I’ll 
wager it was his heart spoke and not his tongue. 
As for the other two, they looked at one another 
and nodded as men do who say, “ All goes 
well.” ’ 


126 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


‘So?’ said Beaufoy again. ‘You are right, 
old friend, and I will keep both them and 
wine at arm’s-length, lest either be traitor ; 
though, by St. Francis, I think there is no mere 
man fool enough to strike Beaufoy in his own 
hall !’ 

It was in a small, plainly-furnished ante- 
room off a chamber on the ground- floor that 
Beaufoy waited to receive his self-invited guests. 
On either side of the door were great lamps in 
sconces, while a third stood on the small table 
filling the centre of the room. A settle, three 
or four stools, and a few antique weapons hung 
against the wall completed the furnishings. 

The Seigneur had not long to wait. There 
was a brief bustle at the door, and then there 
entered a burly, broad-shouldered man, bearded 
and moustached, and ruddy-cheeked for all his 
middle age. At his heels was a soldier-like 
figure, erect and wiry, the keen, alert face 
smooth - shaven. Between the shoulders of 
the two the third peered into the room, and at 
the sight of the small, cunning eyes, and the 
long, arched nose above the cruel mouth, 
Beaufoy shaded his face with his hand. 

‘ First De Melun ; next Saint Belin ; lastly — 
him ! What coil is here ?’ he said under his 
breath. Then, striding forward : ‘ Messieurs, 


THE KING COMES TO BEAUFOY 127 


you are very welcome to Beaufoy,’ he cried ; 

‘ and if at first there seemed a scant hospitality, 
let supper blot out its memory. We must be 
our own heralds, messieurs. I am Raimond 
de Beaufoy.’ 

‘To be less frank than you grieves me. 
Seigneur,’ answered the first, ‘ but the times 
are ticklish. By your leave, I am Messire 
Moi - mdme ; this, Messire Soi - m^me, and 
this 

‘ This,’ broke in Beaufoy, with a bow, ‘ I 
make no doubt is Messire Lui-m^me ! Be it 
so, gentlemen ; your supper will, I trust, be 
none the worse, nor your sleep less peaceful. 
Names are your affair, bread and salt binds 
Beaufoy. My squire tells me you had some- 
thing to say to me. For the present let that 
rest ; talk and a full stomach are good company. 
To table, gentlemen, to table !’ 

Drawing aside a curtain that hid a doorway 
in the side of the room, Beaufoy motioned to 
his guests to enter before him. 

‘ Messire Moi-m^me, you there by yonder 
lamp ; you, messire, on this side ; and you,’ 
and he turned to the third guest, a meagre, 
shrunken, white-faced man of some five-and- 
thirty, smooth-cheeked, small-eyed, thin-lipped, 
and with hair so long as to brush his shoulders — 


128 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


‘ you, Messire Lui-m^me, face to face ; not in 
opposition, you understand, but that we may 
the better know one another and the Seigneur 
laughed as a man laughs who is unaccustomed 
to make even a feeble jest. 

Through the meal their talk was of this or 
that ; the coming vintage, the promise of the 
wheat crop, wine, women, horses, the new- 
fangled war weapons, the dozen subjects that 
are in men’s mouths as they sup. But of 
parties and policies Beaufoy would have 
nothing. If Messire Moi-m^me began upon 
taxation, Beaufoy had a story that led the talk 
elsewhere. If Messire Soi-m6me brought 
in the discontent of the people, Beaufoy de- 
claimed on the troubles of a Seigneurie. If 
cruel-faced Messire Lui-m6me spoke of King 
or Dauphin, Beaufoy talked of France. 

‘ And who,’ said he, ‘ is more a son of France 
than Prince Louis himself ?’ and straightway 
told a tale that lauded both the father and 
the son. 

But at last the meal ended, and as the door 
closed behind the lackeys the Seigneur turned 
to his guest on the left. 

‘You have business, messire,’ said he; ‘but 
before business just one word of gossip. 
Beaufoy is honoured beyond common. To- 


THE KING COMES TO BEAUFOY 129 

day it is — you ; to-morrow — the King of 
France and three hundred of a troop.’ 

‘ The King — here ? St. Denis ! have you 
sold us, Seigneur de Beaufoy ?’ cried the 
bearded man, striking his hand noisily on the 
table. ‘ Is this a trap ?’ 

‘By St. Francis!’ and Beaufoy stared him 
down across the angle of the table, ‘ if we were 
not host and guest you would answer for that 
discourtesy. No trap, and least of all of my 
setting.’ 

‘ But, Seigneur, and his neighbour on the 
right caught him by a sinewy hand, ‘ you might 
have told us ’ 

‘Told you? And what cares Messire Soi- 
m6me whether the King of France sleeps at 
Paris, Beaufoy, or Grenoble? I tell you now, lest 
when I say to-morrow, “Gentlemen, the King 
sleeps at Beaufoy, and where a King comes 
even pronouns must give place — or declare 
themselves,” you will not think me churlish.’ 

When the Seigneur had first spoken, he who 
supped fronting him had half started to his feet, 
his face gone gray with terror, but by an effort 
he regained his self-control. 

‘ Messire de Beaufoy is right,’ said he, 
speaking very slowly : ‘ what have we in common 
with the King of France? Let us rest to- 

9 


130 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


night, Seigneur, and to-morrow you will be 
rid of us.’ 

‘ And your business ?’ 

They looked at one another a moment, then 

one began : ‘ Oh, ay, the business ’ but 

he who had spoken last interrupted him, speak- 
ing sharply and to the point. 

‘ The King sleeps here to-morrow night ? 

‘To-morrow night.’ 

‘ How many has he with him ?’ 

* Three hundred men and all armed.’ 

‘ Will he sleep alone ?’ 

‘That is as he chooses, messire.’ 

‘ I mean, is there access to his room ?* 

‘He will sleep safe,’ said Beaufoy, ‘as safe 
as you yourself.’ 

‘ How far off lies the army ?’ 

‘Twelve leagues, perhaps; perhaps fifteen.’ 

‘ Its strength ?’ 

‘The strength of Normandy, He de France, 
Poitou, Maine, Touraine, Angoumois — the 
strength of France.’ 

Loosening his doublet, Messire Lui-m^me 
drew a small reliquary from his bosom, kissed it, 
and passed it across the table to the Seigneur. 

‘ It is the true cross,’ he said simply ; ‘swear 
on it that what you say is true.’ 

Lifting it to his lips, Beaufoy said : ‘ My word 


THE KING COMES TO BEAUFOY 131 


is my word, but, since you will have it so, before 
God it is true and handed it back. 

For a moment the other sat silent, thinking 
deeply, then he said : 

‘ When a man throws ames ace to sixes he 
must needs pay forfeit. If you were at Grenoble, 
what would you counsel the Dauphin at such a 
time as this ?’ 

‘If I were so far honoured as to be the 
Dauphin’s counsellor,’ said Beaufoy, speaking 
deliberately, ‘ I would remember that the Duke 
of Burgundy is father-in-law to my sister.’ 

‘ Ha ! I understand. Heels, not heads and 
hands! We have done our business, gentle- 
men,’ and he rose from the table. ‘ Seigneur 
de Beaufoy, our compliments to Madame, your 
wife. It grieves us that we must needs leave 
betimes in the morning, and so cannot pay our 
respects in person.’ 

With no more talk than Beaufoy’s farewells 
for the night, they were gone, a lackey lighting 
them to their chambers above. 

But they were not so soon to turn their backs 
on Chateau Beaufoy. Next morning, as the 
Seigneur waited them in the little ante-room, 
Messire Moi-meme, as he had chosen to call 
himself, put in his appearance alone and with a 
face two feet long and as white as new plaster, 

9—2 


132 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


‘Of all the accursed mischances to happen 
here, and to-day of all days! My friend, he 
that sat facing you — a man to stand well with, 
I can tell you, Seigneur de Beaufoy — is down 
with an ague.’ 

‘ An ague ?’ cried Beaufoy, straightening 
himself and looking the other full in the 
eyes. ‘ An ague ? Faith of a gentleman, 
Messire ?’ 

‘Faith of a gentleman!’ said the other 
pettishly. ‘ What the plague would a man want 
to feign an ague for ?’ 

‘ Because the King ‘ 

‘ Ay, because the King ! What do we want 
with the King? ’Tis an ague plain enough, 
and to ride on to-day is death.’ 

‘ Oh, an ague ?’ said Beaufoy coolly. ‘ Mon- 
seigneur caught it at Saint Jacques in ’44, I take 
it ? By my faith, the Switzers gave us all more 
than we wanted !’ 

‘ Mon seigneur ? Saint Jacques? Are you 
mad, Seigneur de Beaufoy 

‘ Am I a fool. Monsieur de Melun,’ retorted 
Beaufoy, ‘ to go through a campaign with the 
Dauphin and not know him ?* 

‘ Then you knew us from the first ?’ 

‘ From the first. Monsieur de Melun Moi- 
m^me, or Moi-m^me de Melun, as it pleases 


THE KING COMES TO BEAUFOY 133 


you. Faith of Beaufoy ! but it was a child’s 
masquerade.’ 

‘ Then,’ cried De Melun, snatching at his 
sword, but letting the sneer pass, ‘a plain 
answer, are you for Charles or Louis f’ 

‘ What ! a plain answer under compulsion of 
bare steel ? Tut! tut! put it up, Monsieur, put 
it up. If I called but once, you would have ten 
men on your back before you could stir a yard, 
and we would be free of factions in France. 
What better would you be of my murder? 
Would that cure Monseigneur of his ague ? 
As for Charles or Louis, I am for France, and 
that, as it seems to me, is between the two.’ 

‘ Give me your pardon. Seigneur,’ and in his 
vexation De Melun half flung his blade back into 
its sheath. ‘ Indeed, I am half mad with fore- 
bodings. The Prince dare not budge, and I 
know the suspicions of this crazy King. There 
is not a room in Beaufoy but he will take an 
oath of you as to who bides there, even to the 
very flies. It was a mad freak, this ride; a 
fool’s freak perhaps, and yet, had we gained you, 
the vassals at Vaucourt, Grandfrai, and I know 
not where, all would have followed like sheep. 
Now we are the sheep, and in ten hours comes 
the butcher.’ 

‘ 1 will take as many oaths as the King wills, 


134 the BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


and will lie in none of them,’ answered the 
Seigneur. ‘Only Monseigneur must bate his 
dignity and keep close.’ 

‘ His dignity !’ cried De Melun, and in his 
earnestness he spoke a larger truth than he 
meant. ‘ When it is to his profit, Monseigneur 
hcis no dignity.’ 

‘ Come, then.’ 

Out into the great hall strode Beaufoy, up 
the twisting narrow stairway, and down the 
broad corridor of the floor above. Opening a 
door on the right, he bade De Melun follow him, 
and the two found themselves in a large, wide 
room that ran along the front of the Chateau, 
and which was furnished in a kind of barbaric 
splendour. 

The slow accumulations of many raids and 
petty wars were stored within, and five genera- 
tions of Beaufoys had brought them together. 
The hangings were the spoil of Flanders, the 
satin-covered settles and stools were of carved 
Lombard work, Spain had had a hand in the 
weaving of the curtains, and the great sombre, 
solitary bed that lay like a catafalque along the 
side-wall, had been the glory of an ancient 
Savoy stronghold. The petty adornments of 
inlaid tables, cabinets, and sconce mouldings 
came from as many principalities as they were 


THE KING COMES TO BEAUFOY 135 


numerous. But the gildings were tarnished, and, 
for all its incongruity of wealth, the room had a 
mournful air of desuetude. 

‘ For the King,’ said Beaufoy with a gesture, 
as he walked across to the wall behind the head 
of the great bed. ‘ The Dauphin can surely 
find no fault if he be lodged next.’ 

Fumbling in the carvings, he touched a spring 
that set the panel moving, and disclosed a 
narrow, gray space hid in the thickness of the 
wall. 

‘ The Dauphin lie there ?’ cried De Melun. 
‘ Man ! he would as soon sleep in a vault.’ 

‘ By St. Francis!’ said the Seigneur grimly, 
‘ you have hit the choice of hosts. ’Tis death 
or Beaufoy !’ 

De Melun went forward a step or two. It 
was no more than a five - foot passage-way 
running the whole breadth of the room, and 
with no roof but that of the Chiteau, the only 
light being from a narrow window set thirty 
feet up in the wall. The dust in it lay thick, 
and the very air smelt of motes. 

‘ The Dauphin lie here !’ cried De Melun a 
second time as he peered about him in the dusk. 
‘ A pretty lurking-place for a son of France I’ 
Then he whipped round on Beaufoy and caught 
him roughly by the shoulders. ‘ A trap, by 


136 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


St. Denis, a trap ! You would give us all 
three ’ 

But the Seigneur pushed him staggering 
back against the further wall, 

‘ God grant me patience !’ he cried, stamping 
his foot. ‘ Pest take you and your traps ! What 
greater need of a trap is there than that you 
have thrust your fool’s head into already ? If I 
wished to be the first man in the kingdom, I 
could cry my terms to-night and run no risk of 
a haggle, and without all this pother. Beware 
of overmuch suspicion, Messire de Melun ; it 
breeds treason, and treason breeds an ill end. 
Trust me or leave me ; you have your choice.’ 

It may be that when, twelve years after to 
the very month, De Melun died the death of a 
traitor on the scaffold in Andely, the Seigneur’s 
warning came back to him. 

‘ We have no choice,’ he answered sullenly. 
‘ Leave you we cannot, and therefore we trust 
you.’ 

‘ Did I bid you come here ?’ cried Beaufoy in 
a rage as he turned back to the corridor, ‘ and 
is it my gain that you stay ? Since you are 
here, Madame de Beaufoy will have the place 
made as habitable as may be, but for myself I 
must go meet the King.’ 

‘ But your people, Seigneur 


THE KING COMES TO BEAUFOY 137 


* My people are my people,’ answered Beau- 
foy curtly ; ‘ have no fears of my people.’ 

Four hours later, with no more than Mar- 
montel and two others as guard, he was waiting 
the coming of Charles at the northern outskirts 
of the forest of Beaufoy. Nor had he long to 
wait. First, in the far distance, seen between 
the patches of trees, there was the growing dun 
of a dust-cloud, then the glint of steel or silver 
as the sun caught a burnished point of armour 
or some polished chain or plate of the beasts’ 
housings, and at last the dark loom of the troop 
through the rolling veil. Charles was as good 
as his word, and had plainly brought his full 
three hundred. 

‘ Best ride on and meet them. Seigneur,’ 
advised Marmontel. 

But Beaufoy would not budge. 

‘Not I,’ said he. ‘ I will show him every 
courtesy, but no faith till I’m out of the wood.’ 
And reining aside, he let the head of the troop 
pass him without a word. 

But as Charles rode up with Tanneguy du 
Chastel, his Master of the Horse, on the one 
hand, and Dunois, the Grand Chamberlain, on 
the other, Beaufoy flung his reins to Marmontel, 
and dismounting, knelt in the three-inch-deep 
dust of the road. 


138 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


‘ Welcome to Beaufoy, sire !’ he cried, un- 
covering. 

‘ What ! what ! what 1’ said Charles, leaning 
forward and peering at the Seigneur across 
Dunois. ‘ Whom have we here ? Whom have 
we here ? Keep you between us, Messire le 
Comte.’ 

‘ It is Messire de Beaufoy, sire,’ said Dunois 
— ‘ a brave and loyal gentleman, as I believe.’ 

‘ Ay, ay, that may be, that may be, but we 
hear strange tales of Messire de Beaufoy. You 
hold your head over-high, Messire, and at times 
courage and pride are ill bed-fellows to loyalty. 
What ! what! There are whispers abroad.’ 

‘ Let those who whisper speak out plainly, 
sire,* said Beaufoy boldly, ‘and by St. Francis, 
I shall know how so to answer them that they 
shall not whisper a second time.’ 

‘To speak bluntly,’ said Dunois, ‘the King 
means that rumour has it you have taken Louis 
to your heart.* 

‘ Ay, ay,’ broke in Charles. ‘ Do you know 
the fable of him who warmed the serpent ? God 
show him mercy who warms Louis, for he’ll 
have need of it.* 

‘ Let deeds answer words, sire,’ replied Beau- 
foy. ‘ Angoumois holds me for no fool, and 
yet I am here with but three men, as you see.’ 


THE KING COMES TO BEAUFOY 139 


‘ What ? No more than that ?’ cried Charles. 
* Well, for this night we will trust you at arm’s 
length, Messire de Beaufoy. Mount and ride 
on with us.’ 

Thereafter there was but little talk. At rare 
intervals Charles roused himself to ask of this 
or that, but his mind wandered and interest 
died with the question. As for Dunois and 
Du Chastel, they, like good courtiers, took their 
cue from their master and nursed their thoughts 
in silence. Once, and once only, Du Chastel 
spoke. 

‘ Where the plague does the wind come 
from ?’ said he. ‘ Listen ! There is not a 
rustle above us, and yet the growth on either 
side is all astir with the blast.’ 

‘ It is plain you are no woodsman. Grand 
Master,’ said Beaufoy carelessly, ‘ or you would 
understand better how in these hollows the 
breeze is sucked in by the coolness. Once 
clear of the wood, there will be none of it.’ 

‘Then bid them ride faster,’ and Charles 
straightened himself in his saddle. ‘ The 
place is lifeless, and I hate it. Is there always 
this quiet, Messire de Beaufoy ?’ 

‘ We are a quiet people, sire,’ said Beaufoy, 
and said no more. 

‘ What ! what ! what ! A quiet people 


140 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


echoed the King. ‘ God keep me from such 
quiet. I would sooner jostle shoulders with 
my loving son Louis than face it.’ 

Nor did the open country please the King 
better. 

‘ Send word forward, Du Chastel, that we 
ride through yonder village, I am sick of 
solitude. What is its name, Messire de 
Beaufoy ?’ 

‘Charnex, sire.' 

‘ And how many inhabitants ?' 

‘ Some two hundred, sire.’ 

‘ Good, good ! then at last we shall see life.’ 

But as they rode slowly between the double 
lines of straggling houses his face darkened. 
There was not a peasant in the trim gardens, 
not a woman spinning in the porches ; the doors 
were shut and life there was none, or no more 
than a child’s frightened white face at a window. 
A silence deeper than the silence of the woods 
brooded over it. 

‘ God’s mercy !’ he cried wrathfully, ‘ has 
a plague smitten Beaufoy that the place is 
void ?’ 

‘It is harvest, sire, and the women are 
abroad in the fields.’ 

‘ The fields ! the fields ! What ! what ! 
what! Are your wcrnien slaves, Messire, that 


THE KING COMES TO BEAUFOY 141 


they should labour in the fields while the men 
bide at ease ? Where are the men ?’ 

‘ The men are — elsewhere, sire,’ answered 
Beaufoy. ‘ They might have thought that 
with such a company the King came in wrath, 
and they love their Seigneur, poor souls ! so I 
bade them keep ’ 

‘ Say no more. Seigneur de Beaufoy,’ cried 
Charles, giving him his title for the first time. 

‘ I see plainly men lied about you. Ride on, 
gentlemen, ride on !’ 

‘ And this,’ said the King, some four hours 
later, when, having supped, he was being con- 
ducted to the chamber set apart for his use — 
‘ and this is Chateau Beaufoy ? With your 
leave. Seigneur, we will go on a tour of in- 
spection. What ! what ! what ! am I not a 
soldier ? and plaguily near a hostile country, 
too ! It is a soldier’s duty to go his rounds 
— eh, Dunois, eh ? Here, for my train ? 
Good ! good ! those walls would stand some- 
what of a siege. For all our need, we have no 
better in Paris. And this chamber and this ? 
Ay, ay, see to it, Dunois, that we have men in 
all these. And this ?’ 

‘ This, sire,’ and Beaufoy paused with his hand 
on the door, ‘ this is set apart for Madame my 
wife, and adjoins that which you yourself honour.’ 


142 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


‘ What ! what ! what !’ said Charles cunningly. 
‘ Adjoins, eh ? With your leave, Seigneur, with 
your leave. Madame is below, I think, and it 
is a soldier’s duty — duty, you understand, duty, 
no more. A noble room truly, and yonder is 
the little Seigneur’s cradle. A wise mother 
who keeps her babe by her side. I would to 
the Lord there were more like her in France ! 
Dunois, see to it that three of our men sleep 
in the passage-way before Madame’s door, lest 
she be disturbed. Yet there is no need for 
alarm. Seigneur ; it is but a courtesy, no more, 
no more.’ 

‘ I humbly thank you, sire ; but, by St. 
Francis ! Beaufoy can see to Beaufoy’s 
own.’ 

‘Good! good! good! Nevertheless, Dunois, 
you hear ? — three in the passage. And this ? 
Why, we are royally lodged. Yet, in August 
even so large a room strikes cold when used 
alone. Let five sleep here, Dunois — five, and 
set the usual sentries at the door. As to the 
floor above, let Chabannes see to it ; he knows, 
eh, eh ? — he knows, eh ? Now then, my valets, 
I am ready,’ and having safeguarded himself at 
every point, Charles the Well- Served went to 
his rest. 

It might have been an hour later that 


THE KING COMES TO BEAUFOY 143 


Raimond de Beaufoy, from Madame’s side of 
the wall, set the panel moving, and found Louis 
the Dauphin reared upon his elbow in his 
narrow bed ; a rushlight flickering by his side 
set the shadows dancing so that it might have 
been either a scowl or a smile that met the 
Seigneur as he went down upon his knee. 

‘ Has the King come ? — and is De Melun 
right i*’ whispered Louis in a hiss. ‘ Is he 
there. Seigneur de Beaufoy ?’ and he flung his 
right arm backward with a quick gesture. 

‘The King has come and is there. Mon- 
seigneur,’ answered De Beaufoy, speaking 
under his breath. 

‘ There ? there and Louis shook his 
clenched hand in the air, ‘ not four feet away, 
said De Melun. Not four feet away? Tell 
me ’ — leaning forward, he caught Beaufoy half 
round the neck, drawing him so close that his 
lips touched his ear — ‘there is a spring from 
this side ? I thought so, and the King is not 
four feet away ! Would you be Grand Admiral, 
Seigneur de Beaufoy ? Would you be Marshal 
of France? Would you be Governor of the 
He de France, or change your petty Seigneurie 
for all Guienne ? There is a spring, De Beaufoy, 
there is a spring, and the King is not four feet 
away ! Would you be first subject in the 


144 the beaufoy romances 


kingdom, Seigneur de Beaufoy His hot 
fingers closed on the Seigneur’s neck. ‘ Not 
four feet away,' he whispered, ‘ not four feet, 
and every man asleep !’ 

Then he drew back, and, with his hand upon 
Beaufoy’s shoulder, lay eyeing him. 

But not for long, five seconds maybe, for 
Louis, with all his superstitions and leaden 
saints, was no fool. He could read a man’s ‘no ’ 
as well as another, and the silent rebuke in the 
Seigneur’s eyes lashed his self-love like a whip. 
The evil look in his eyes struggled with a sour 
smile on the mouth, and his hand fell down 
upon the coverlid. 

‘ When my hour comes,’ he said, ‘ may God 
grant me also men that can keep faith. Tut, 
tut ! hold thy peace, man ; I want deeds, not 
words,’ and he turned his face to the darkness. 

Suddenly he rounded upon his shoulder 
again, and groping in his breast, drew out 
the reliquary. 

‘ If not for me. Seigneur de Beaufoy, at least 
not against me. Swear that, come what will, 
you hold me safe !’ 

Taking it into his hand, the Seigneur turned 
it over, thinking deeply. He knew the Dauphin 
to his heart’s core : his cold unforgiving cruelty, 
his tenacious memory for a wrong or slight. 


THE KING COMES TO BEAUFOY 145 


rccil or fancied, and the evil look and the 
sour smile were to him as the shadow of 
death. 

‘Is an oath on such a thing more binding 
than a man’s honest word, Monseigneur ?’ 

‘Words come and words go, and nought 
comes of them !’ said Louis, his face paling in 
the shadows, ‘ but whoso swears falsely on this 
dies within the year. Does the oath bind ? 
Ay, by God’s life it does bind ! Swear, 
Seigneur de Beaufoy, swear.’ 

‘ Swear you first. Monseigneur,’ said Beaufoy, 
drawing a deep breath as a man might who 
played a heavy stake. ‘ Swear that, come what 
will, as King or Dauphin, you will uphold, 
strengthen and confirm Raimond de Beaufoy 
and his heirs in the Suzerainty, and bind your 
issue so to do.’ 

‘You have my word to that,’ said Louis 
earnestly. ‘In all frankness I pledge you that. 
After to-night 1 could do no less.’ 

‘ Words come and words go and leave nought 
behind,’ answered Beaufoy doggedly. ‘ Swear, 
Monseigneur, and quickly, I pray you, lest in 
asking I raise my voice.’ 

And with a scowl Louis swore. 

Taking the reliquary in his turn, Beaufoy 
touched it with his lips. 

10 


146 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


‘ Before God, Monseigneur, I will hold you 
safe.’ 

Rising to his feet, he bowed as if to Charles 
himself, and had his hand upon the panel to 
close it, when Louis stopped him with a gesture. 
‘You still advise Burgundy i*’ 

‘ Burgundy and patience. Monseigneur. With 
two such allies, your time will come.’ 

‘ Then farewell. Seigneur de Beaufoy, and by 
the Saints ! I think my oath was a wise stroke 
both for me and for you. I can say so, now 
that my blood is cooler.’ 

Then he again turned his face to the dark, and 
Beaufoy could hear him moaning to himself : 
‘ N ot four feet away, not four feet, and all men 
asleep!’ And the man he would have murdered 
in his bed was his father 1 

With so much fuel ready for a spark to set it 
in a roar that would have scorched France, 
there was little rest for Beaufoy that night. 
Not a flap of a shutter in the wind, not a 
scamper of a rat in the wainscot, not a stumble 
of the sentinel in the corridor, not a cry of a 
nightbird but was the very voice of death. 
Even the quiet sigh and rustle of the child in 
his cradle was the fumbling of parricide fingers, 
blindly groping for the hidden spring. The 
hundred voices of the silence called him con- 


THE KING COMES TO BEAUFOY 147 


tinually, and his ears were for ever on the 
strain for a cry. But the night passed undis- 
turbed, and the gray of the dawn slipped into 
its blackness. 

It was a mighty consolation to his host that, 
having to ride to Grandfrai, where he was to 
be guest to Bishop Theodore, Charles had no 
mind to dally. He was early awake, early 
afoot, and an hour after Beaufoy had given 
Marmontel his orders for the day, sending him 
and four others out at top-speed — that is to say, 
by ten o’clock — the King was ready for the 
saddle. 

‘ What ! what ! what !’ he cried, ‘ you ride with 
us. Seigneur de Beaufoy, to see us safe back to 
France again ? Here we have been in a new 
country and at peace. By St. Denis ! you must 
teach us kingcraft, since your will is law, and 
with no more than ten of an army to back it, 

while I But then. Seigneur, your son is 

in his cradle.’ 

The weak suspicious face grew pathetic, and 
not even the first beginnings of the Valois mad- 
ness could destroy the dignity of its sorrow. 
Presently he roused himself. 

‘ I must forget the son — at least, so says 
Dunois — and remember nothing but the rebel ; 
and yet, De Beaufoy, yet Eh, eh ! here is 


148 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


Dunois, and to be a king in these times a man 
must remember to forget.’ 

‘ All is ready, sire, and we may move forward,’ 
said Dunois, riding up. ‘ What, De Beaufoy, 
do you ride alone ?’ 

‘ Why, yes,’ answered the Seigneur care- 
lessly, ‘ I have, as you saw, but few fellows, 
and I sent them out on errands an hour ago.’ 

‘ What is that ? what is that ?’ cried the 
King, leaning forward, and his face wrinkling 
in its uneasiness. ‘ On errands ? But you 
ride with us ?’ 

‘ Yes, sire, and wherever you bid me ride.’ 

‘ Why, why, here, between Dunois and Du 
Chastel, and let Sancerre come on my other 
side. So long as we have you with us, De 
Beaufoy, the errands will be peace.’ 

‘ What, Sire !’ cried the Seigneur, ‘ do you 
still doubt me ?’ 

‘ Doubt ! who talks of doubt ?’ said Charles 
cunningly. ‘ What are we but soldiers ? — and 
good soldiers, you know, De Beaufoy — good 
soldiers must be cautious. Dunois, where is 
that parchment ? Ay, give it to our good 
cousin, the Count de Charnex. What ! what ! 
what ! is that mistrust. Seigneur ? Only, the 
Lord send you more folk in the village ; ’twas 
like a tomb.’ 


THE KING COMES TO BEAUFOY 149 


‘ Sire,’ began Beaufoy. 

‘ There, there, let it pass. Monsieur de 
Charnex — let it pass. I thought you a rogue, 
a harbourer of rebels and the like, and found 
you an honourable gentleman. Would to the 
Lord there were more in France; they might 
all be Count or Baron to the profit of the 
kingdom ! What ! the forest again, and as 
silent as yesterday ! Are you a huntsman, 
De Charnex ?’ 

* Why, yes, sire, like every country gentleman. 
But how can I ’ 

‘ I know, I know. Listen, Monsieur le Comte’ 
— and he echoed the Dauphin ; ‘ when I want 
gratitude, I will ask for works, not words ; I 
will say, “ Bring me that rebel, Louis,” and you 
will do it. Eh, eh ! am I right ? But I thought 
you a huntsman from the whistle on your 
breast.’ 

‘ You have a quick eye, sire ’ — and Beaufoy 
lifted the silver call that dangled by a chain 
from his neck. ‘,We woodsmen have need of 
such a thing, since to lose one’s self in such a 
tangle of timber is no hard matter. The sound 
of this would be heard half a mile. 

‘ Blow it, and let me judge,’ cried Charles, 
his face aglow with interest, like a child’s. 

Lifting it to his lips, the Seigneur filled his 


150 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


lungs with a deep breath for a mighty blast, 
then dropped the whistle to its full stretch of 
the chain. 

‘ I am no coward, sire,’ he said gravely, ‘ and 
yet, I dare not.’ 

‘ What ! what ! what ! dare not ? Why dare 
not ?’ 

‘ Because, sire, when a man calls for nought 
in these woods ’ 

‘ Nought comes,’ broke in Dunois. 

‘ By St. Francis, not so !’ said Beaufoy ; ‘but 
what may come no man can foretell. Yet, if 
the King wills ’ 

‘No, no, no !’ cried Charles; ‘let the whim 
go. Hark, Sancerre, to the wind, how it sighs 
and rustles in the grass ! The Saints be praised 
there is Christian sunlight in front ! Ride on, 
gentlemen. The Lord be thanked for the 
sweetness of free air ! Farewell, De Charnex ; 
God send whoever comes after me in France 
such faithful, honest gentlemen as yourself. 
To-night and every night may I have as frank 
and trustful a host.’ 

At a wave of the King’s hand the troop 
moved on, leaving Beaufoy sitting bareheaded 
in the sunlight. For full three minutes he 
waited motionless ; then, with a jerk of the 
reins, he turned his beast and rode slowly back 


THE KING COMES TO BEAUFOY 151 


into the forest. At the first great dimness 
overhead he halted and looked back across his 
shoulder to where the King’s troop was fast 
being lost in the distance ; then he raised the 
whistle to his mouth ; he blew it shrilly. 

‘ Would nought come !’ he said grimly, 
‘ Dunois would have thought he had raised the 
devil’s legions.’ 

From right and left, out of every bush and 
brake and overgrown bunch of grass, with 
lance or sword or pike or what-not ready in 
their hands, the men of Beaufoy, two hundred 
strong, drew in behind him. 

‘ Come, my children,’ he cried ; ‘ the Seigneur 
is safe for this time. A man plays none the 
worse for having the dice loaded ; but, in His 
mercy, may God send us no more kings and 
princes.’ 


VI 

THE JUSTICE OF BEAUFOY 

It was in the time of old Raimond that the 
House of Beaufoy rose to the highest point of 
its power. As in most affairs of life, a combina- 
tion of things good and evil tended to bring this 
about. 

The good was that for two generations 
before him there was peace within the borders 
of the Suzerainty, or what in those turbulent 
times counted as peace, so that Beaufoy’s men 
and the villages that called him lord throve ex- 
ceedingly. Herds and flocks increased, corn- 
lands grew out of the brushwood of the valley 
wilderness, and vineyards pushed their way up 
the slopes. 

The evil was that Raimond de Beaufoy was 
orphaned at twelve months old ; and yet out of 
this evil there sprang another good. Bertrand 
de Freyne, the little lad’s guardian, was strong- 
brained, strong-armed, 'stout-hearted, and 


THE JUSTICE OF BEAUFOY 153 


ambitious. From the Chiteau he lorded it 
like any king ; but like a king also, he let no 
man touch his trust, so that under him Beaufoy’s 
lands crept north and south, and east and west, 
and crept fast. 

Then, after seventeen years, came another 
stroke of fortune to young Raimond. Bertrand 
de Freyne caught the small-pox and died in four 
days, thus leaving the way clear for the young 
Seigneur to step unopposed into his inheritance. 
His right was, indeed, indisputable ; but had 
Bertrand lived, the heir might have found 
himself thrust from his place, and the strong 
hand have held what the strong arm won. 
Death settled all that. 

During these seventeen years young De 
Beaufoy received but little training save that of 
arms. Busied here and there on the affairs of 
the trust, which he had come to look upon as 
his own, Bertrand de Freyne had no leisure to 
waste upon his nephew’s upbringing ; he there- 
fore left him to monk, varlet, and squire. These, 
in their turn, had no mind to cross the lad. It 
is an ill thing for an underling when a lord of 
life and death hath a long memory ; so the old 
wisdom that the heir, so long as he is a child, 
differeth nothing from a servant, Weis never 
learned by Raimond de Beaufoy. 


154 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


If that were true while his guardian lived, 
how much the more was it true when the 
heir had come to his own ! And it is to 
the Seigneur’s credit that at fifty he was 
still an honourable gentleman, as the honour 
of the times went, though passionate withal, 
and holding Raimond de Beaufoy, Sieur of 
Mesnil and Count of Charnex, to stand next 
to the King in all France. Wherein, in the 
personal appraisement, he was like five hundred 
more of that hot-tempered and arrogant age. 

Seated on a high chair, raised two steps up 
from the flagged floor of the justice-room, the 
Seigneur was upholding the dignity of the law 
and of Beaufoy, if, indeed, there was any 
distinction in his mind between the one and the 
other. Behind, and at each side, were half a 
dozen men-at-arms, bare-headed, leather - 
jerkined, and carrying pikes in their hands. 
In front, stretched lengthwise across the hall, 
was an oak table, black with age, behind which 
stood the culprit, guarded. A slack-shouldered 
shambling fellow, with a flabby face, eyes over- 
close together, and heavy, thick lips showing 
out of a bristle of beard. Midway was a group 
of rustics, the witnesses in the case ; for the 
Seigneur held to, at least, the forms of justice. 
Clerk there was none. What need was there 


THE JUSTICE OF BEAUFOY 155 


of record, since Beaufoy himself was the sole 
court of appeal ? 

‘ What art thou, fellow ?’ 

‘ A poor goatherd. Seigneur, the Lord knows 
how poor.’ 

‘ How poor ! By my faith, rather a king 
among goatherds, since nothing less than 
Beaufoy’s deer will content thy stomach ! If 
goatherds eat Beaufoy’s venison, what will their 
betters eat ? Beaufoy himself! This must be 
stopped.’ 

‘ Mercy, Seigneur, mercy 1’ cried the man, 
his thick lips all a-tremble. ‘ It was no more 
than a wild thing, and ’ 

‘ Hearken, fellow,’ and for the first time 
Beaufoy showed anger. ‘ Knowst thou that all 
that walks on legs on Beaufoy’s lands, that 
swims with fins in Beaufoy’s waters, or flies 
with wings in Beaufoy’s air, be it tame or wild, 
man, beast, fish, or fowl, is mine ? Wild things, 
fool ? It had been a smaller matter hadst thou 
slain one of thy common kind. Ye are thick 
enough, God wot, for none to grieve at the 
thinning. Wild things ? Away with thy chatter 
of wild things 1 Did that doctrine spread, we 
would have thee calling thyself thine own next 1 
By St. Francis, thou shalt hang to prove that, 
at least, to be no truth,’ and he struck his 


156 THE BEAUFOy ROMANCES 


open palm wrathfully on the flat arm of the 
chair. 

‘ What is thy name ?’ 

‘ Peter, Seigneur, Peter the goatherd ; no 
more.’ 

‘ A true prophecy.’ And Beaufoy laughed. 
‘ When I hang thee, thou wilt be Peter the 
goatherd no more. Hast thou wife or child ?’ 

‘ No, Seigneur, no, but give me time ’ 

‘Then there will be fewer to weep,’ said 
Beaufoy slowly. ‘ I would set my fief against 
a sheep’s carcase that thou hast shed other 
blood than a deer’s in thy day. The Lord 
God has written greed, murder, and wanton- 
ness across thy face for all to see, and 
Beaufoy will be well rid of thee. The sen- 
tence is ’ 

But what the sentence was Peter the goatherd 
was spared the hearing for that time. 

Of a sudden, from without, there arose a 
bluster of tongues, a rumble of suppressed 
hoarse tones, and rising through it a shrill 
outcry that cut its way across the courtyard 
clear to . the great hall, and closed Beaufoy’s 
lips. 

‘Justice, Seigneur, justice! Justice and 
vengeance I See how they have mishandled 
Beaufoy’s man.’ 


THE JUSTICE OF BEAUFOY 157 


Then from the threshold came the shuffle of 
feet, the stress and sound of struggle, and a 
storm of voices. 

‘ Hold back, fool, and bide thy time.’ 

‘ Nay, but this is my time. Would ye hold 
back if ye were so mishandled ?’ 

‘ But the Seigneur is within, and ’ 

‘ Ay, he is within, and so am I here. Hold 
back ye, rather!’ 

Again there was the scuffling of feet and the 
panting of hard-drawn breath. But Beaufoy 
leaped from his chair and cried across the hall, 
in a voice that roared the tumult down to 
silence : 

‘ Stand aside, fellows 1 And do thou come 
in, Beaufoy’s man. For justice thou criest, and 
by the Lord, justice thou shalt have ! Come 
in, I say I’ 

As Beaufoy ended, the door, which had been 
ajar, was flung open, and a man rushed in, half 
staggering, and groping with his hands as one 
dazed. For a moment he paused on the threshold 
staring wildly ; then, seeing the Seigneur at the 
further end of the hall, he ran across and flung 
himself at his feet. 

‘ God’s grace, fellow ! who hath used thee so 
cried Beaufoy, drawing back. ‘ If it comes not 
of thine own folly, then by St. Francis, my 


158 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


patron, he should suffer for his vile work, were 
he my own son !’ 

Panting and sobbing, the peasant gripped 
hard the Seigneur’s chair, and looked up into a 
gaze that was half pity, half repulsion — looked 
up, gasping and stammering incoherent words ; 
for now that he had his heart’s desire his speech 
failed him. 

Well did the poor wretch deserve his master’s 
compassion. Twice he had been struck, and 
the blows driven home by a heavy hand and 
with a vicious will. The nose was shattered, 
an eye crushed, the mouth and one cheek no 
more than a bloody patch. The hair of the 
beard was matted in the drip of the wounds. 

‘Whose work is this, man? Kneel not 
there mumming and mewling, but tell thy 
tale. Three of you have yon goatherd into 
safe keeping. His turn can wait, and by my 
faith, it will come soon enough. Now, then, 
thy tale.’ 

‘ I am a man of Salpice, thy village. Seigneur, 
and my wheat is green in the clod. Four 
reivers, who call Jean de la Tour master, 
turned from the road to ride across it, and as 
I caught one by the bridle to force him back, 
he smote me twice athwart the face with his 
staff Twice, Seigneur, twice — seel’ With 


THE JUSTICE OF BEAUFOY 159 


his thumb he thrust up a battered eyebrow. 

‘ Blind, blind, blind !’ and he fell a- whimpering. 

‘ Speak truth, fellow, for it would be an 
everlasting shame if an honest man hung 
for a rogue’s lie ! Beyond the catching his 
bridle, what else didst thou i*’ 

‘ Nought, Seigneur ; by St. Francis of 
Beaufoy, nought, and he smote me twice — 
see !’ 

This time he gaped his mouth to show the 
splintered teeth within, then he reared himself 
high on his knees, and putting out a shaking 
hand, gripped Beaufoy by the foot. 

‘ How dost thou know he was Jean de la 
Tour’s man ?’ 

‘ There were four of them. Seigneur : one. 
La Tour’s squire — him I know well ; two that 
followed at his heels — them I also know well ; 
and this fellow and all four rode off, hot- 
spurred, to their master’s hold. Had they 
been masterless men. Seigneur, I had paid my 
own score,’ and he shifted his hand from 
Beaufoy’s foot to a woodman’s knife that hung 
at his girdle. 

‘Ay,’ said Beaufoy, ‘ La Tour’s arm is over- 
long for thee, but by St. Francis! mine is 
longer. Marmontel,’ and he turned to his 
squire, ‘ see to his hurts, and within the hour 


i6o THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


let twenty of Beaufoy’s men be in the saddle. 
Pikes, Marmontel, broadswords, and a bc^ or 
two of powder. Be at ease, man ; if vengeance 
can heal hurts, thy sufferings are well-nigh 
over.’ 

An hour later a party of a score strong, with 
Beaufoy at its head, and Marmontel half a yard 
behind his master’s elbow, was riding slowly 
over the still wintry fields. There was no 
question now of young wheat or newly-planted 
vineyard. The Seigneur rode straight forward, 
turning neither to the right hand nor to the 
left. 

‘ Three leagues, is it not, Marmontel ?’ said 
he. ‘ Some fifty minutes’ ride, since, with the 
day in hand, there is no haste. There will 
be no trouble with Jean de la Tour, I take it 

‘ A scant three leagues. Seigneur, and as for 
La Tour, he will show fight, for he comes of a 
stock with more courage than crowns, and pride 
than patience ; but the place is outworn and 
ramshackle. My word on it, but he’ll fight ; 
for he is Lectoure born, and you know the 
saying : 

‘ A Duke of Lorraine, with King for sire, 

Hath no more pride than a Gascon squire.” * 

‘ Then he may eat his pride,’ said the other 


THE JUSTICE OF BEAUFOY i6i 


grimly; ‘for by St. Francis! I’ll have no man 
ruffling it within the four corners of Beaufoy, 
be he Gascon or Angoumois.’ 

Marmontel was right as to the condition of 
Jean de la Tour’s hold. Fire and time had 
left their mark upon its stout walls, and of the 
rambling structure little remained habitable 
but the centre portion and its flanking turrets. 
The wings were shattered and roofless ruins. 

Posting two men at the rear lest his prey 
should break back and escape unchallenged, 
Beaufoy bade his troop wait his orders, and 
rode forward to the great door alone. With 
La Tour he had no quarrel, and if the fellow 
who had so mishandled his churl were given 
up to his justice, he would turn his bridle and 
begone, with, doubtless, a curt warning to 
leave Beaufoy’s men unharmed in the future. 
If La Tour were obstinate, then, by the saints ! 
the master might pay the man’s fault ; and 
whether it was master or man, Beaufoy cared 
little. 

Which it was to be was not long left un- 
certain, for while he was still thirty paces off, 
Jean de la Tour himself appeared at the open 
door : a tall, burly man, smooth-shaven after 
the fashion of the day, and some five years 
younger than the Seigneur. 


II 


1 62 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


‘ When Raimond de Beaufoy does a thing, 
he does it well,’ said he in sour jest. ‘ Here 
have I been four years in my poor house with 
never so much as a “ God save you !” and now 
you come to do me honour with a troop at 
your heels.’ 

‘ By my faith, you are right,’ answered the 
Seigneur, ‘ and what Raimond de Beaufoy has 
come to do this day he will do well indeed ! 
Though it lies in my mind you will find little 
of honour in it.’ 

Sitting back in his saddle, he very curtly 
told his story, while Jean de la Tour, three 
steps down from his open door, listened with 
much outward courtesy. 

At the end, ‘ Give me the fellow and let me 
go,’ said Beaufoy. ‘ With you I desire a quarrel 
as little as I fear it; but have the man I must and 
will. When I have done with him you may 
have him back, and welcome.’ 

‘It is long,’ answered the other slowly, 
‘ very long, since a man said “ I must ” to 
Jean de la Tour, and the novelty sticks and 
is hard to swallow. Besides, in this matter 
there is a thing I know and a thing I do not 
know. The thing I do not know is that any 
man of mine has done you wrong, and the 
thing I do know is that if the tale be true, your 


THE JUSTICE OF BEAUFOY 163 


churl got no more than his deserts. When 
Beaufoy comes to La Tour in courtesy and 
without “ I wills” and “ I musts” in his mouth,’ 
he went on, ‘ he will ever find an open door ; 
but when he comes as to-day the door is better 
— thus.’ 

Turning, he walked leisurely up the steps, 
and entering, thrust to the door behind him, 
and Beaufoy heard the jar of heavy bolts shot 
into their sockets. 

‘ Faith !’ said he to himself, as he rode slowly 
back to his waiting troop, ‘ ’tis a pity, a sore 
pity, that the man is a fool ; but there is no 
room for both him and me in Beaufoy.’ 

What followed thereafter, though it cost five 
lives, has little to do with the story, and so may 
be briefly summarized. First, a short council. 

‘ Blow me in that door, Marmontel ; or, rather, 
take two with thee and do it.’ So three went 
forward where but two came back, for one lay 
across the steps with a cracked spine. The 
stones of La Tour’s parapet were heavy and 
loose, easy to his hand, and his aim was sure. 
Then came a rush under cover of the pungent 
smoke, a rush that blooded both sides, for one 
of Beaufoy’s men went down with a pike in his 
breast, dragging with him the man who had 
thrust it home, and the two, rolling into a 

II — 2 


1 64 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


corner, ended their battle in quiet. The rush 
carried the entrance, and the guttural curse 
and heavy breath as they strove in the narrow- 
pass were followed by a roar that rumbled the 
dust from the rafters of the antique roof of the 
great square hall, a roar of hoarse cries, rasped 
steel, and shuffling, stamping feet. Then, of 
a sudden, there came a great calm. 

The strife had been unequal. Two of La 
Tour’s men were on the floor, the one upon his 
face, the other heaped across him and curved 
backwards, staring with blind eyes at the dim 
roof, and the rest — some four — had, on an 
order from their master, flung down their 
swords, and were cramped in a corner, sullenly 
glaring at Beaufoy like so many wild beasts. 
Of Jean de la Tour, dead or alive, there was 
no sign. 

‘ Have these four into a sure hold,’ cried the 
Seigneur, ‘but do them no harm. That they 
fought, and fought well, for the hand that fed 
them, stands to their credit. As for their 
mcister — disperse, fellows, and seek him out. 
It does not fit with the honour of Beaufoy 
that the man who flouts its justice should 
escape scot-free.’ 

Out of the great entrance-hall a long, narrow 
room ran to the north turret. There the 


THE JUSTICE OF BEAUFOY 165 


Seigneur sat himself down and waited the 
result of the search with what patience he 
might ; nor was his men’s diligence unre- 
warded. In an upper room they found three 
women, two in utter fear, and one in no fear 
at all — a well-grown, slender slip of a girl with 
a pale face and angry gray eyes, and who met 
them with a kind of stern contempt, asking : 

‘ What brigand’s work is this, breaking into 
my father’s house ?’ 

These they brought to Beaufoy, and were 
quickly sent about their business. 

‘ I set ye not to seek women, but a man,’ he 
said curtly. ‘ As for the girl, let her bide by 
the window there, and these two with her.’ 

For an hour he sat by the table, throwing 
a word or two to Marmontel from time to 
time ; then, one by one the searchers returned, 
shame-faced and empty-handed. The cunning 
of Jean de la Tour had been too much for 
them. 

‘There was no breaking away at the rear,’ 
said Marmontel. ‘ Besides, I know the man ; 
he would die like a rat in its hole ; he is, there- 
fore, somewhere within the walls. With a 
smooth stick and a yard of whipcord, now ’ — 
and he looked across at the group by the 
window — ‘we might ’ 


i66 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


‘ Hold thy peace !’ answered the Seigneur 
sternly. ‘ When did Beaufoy war on women ? 
In all courtesy, demoiselle’ — and he rose 
as he spoke — ‘ I would have a word with 
you.’ 

‘ Then it will be the first courtesy Beaufoy 
has shown La Tour,’ replied she tartly ; ‘so, in 
all courtesy, let it be brief.’ 

‘ What would you have ? — and he shrugged 
his shoulders. ‘ Men cannot war with perfumed 
essences or fools’ baubles, nor yet with tongues, 
like women.’ He stood silent a moment, and 
drummed his fingers on the table like a man 
thinking deeply. ‘ Thou art Jean de la Tour’s 
daughter ?’ 

‘ I am Agathe, daughter of Jean, Count de 
la Tour.’ 

‘Ay, ay ; a Count of Gascony.’ 

‘ A Count of Gascony is the better of any 
Seigneur in Angoumois.’ 

‘ The better, but not the match ’ — and the 
Seigneur laughed sourly. ‘ To-day proves 
that. Truly thou art thy father’s daughter. 
Hast thou sister ? — brother ?’ 

‘ Neither one nor other.’ 

‘ What kindred, then ?’ 

‘ None here. Seigneur, or Raimond de Beau- 
foy might not have been within La Tour’s 


THE JUSTICE OF BEAUFOY 167 

walls to-day. In Gascony, perhaps ; but — 
but ’ 

‘ Ay, ay ; I understand. There is a feud, 
and not one would have crooked a finger to 
keep Beaufoy from where he is. No un- 
common thing that in France, but it clears 
the way.’ 

Again he stood silent, gnawing his under- 
lip, his gaze wandering slowly from the girl to 
the table by which he stood. Suddenly he 
straightened himself and looked her full in the 
face. 

‘ Thy father — what thinkest thou ? Is he 
alive or dead Answer with circumspection ; 
for if he be alive, needs must that we find him, 
though we burn the place about his ears ; if he 
be dead, or it is in doubt, that is another matter. 
I have no mind to make Beaufoy the poorer by 
a stout castle, and the richer by a blackened 
ruin. Which ?’ 

It was plain that the question was like the 
stroke of a whip upon her flesh, for she first 
went pale, then red as fire. 

‘Think,’ said Beaufoy softly — ‘think well. 
Whatever you say I abide by.’ 

‘ I ’ — she caught his eyes, stammered, and 
looked down upon the floor — ‘ I — I — cannot 
tell. Since the fight I have not seen him alive ’ 


1 68 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


— and, drawing a long breath, she flashed a 
look up eagerly at Beaufoy. 

‘ Then ’ — and the Seigneur dropped his words 
very slowly, one by one — ‘ for all thou knowest, 
he is dead ? 

‘ For all I know,’ answered she, fetching a 
sigh that shook her as the wind a bush — ‘ for 
all I know, he is dead.’ 

‘ So ’ — and he turned to Marmontel — ‘ that 
ends the matter. Let there be no more search.’ 

Then he beckoned him to come near, and 
for a brief space the two stood in earnest talk. 

‘ Thou hast thy orders,’ Beaufoy said at 
length. ‘ See to it that no time is lost. I give 
thee two hours, no more. Now be gone. 
Some of you there seek out bread and meat ; 
our hostess and I would dine. Thou art not 
hungry ?’ he went on as the girl made a gesture 
of dissent. ‘ Well, well, grief is a great slayer 
of appetite. Now, I, I thank the Lord, am 
famished, and know it.’ 

While he dined he talked, and when he had 
finished eating he talked, a great flask of 
Burgundy wine at his left elbow. A medley of 
broken tales, legends of Beaufoy, memories of 
dead women ; a courteous flow of words, suave 
and smooth, but never once might Agathe de la 
Tour or her women quit the room. At last 


THE JUSTICE OF BEAUFOY 169 


there was the thud of hoof-beats on the turf, 
and the loom of half a dozen men riding by in 
a bunch. 

‘ On my word, Marmontel has made good 
haste,’ he said, following the figures with his 
eyes as they swept past, ‘or fair company 
makes a short hour.’ 

Presently the door was opened from without 
and the squire appeared, followed by a Fran- 
ciscan friar in his gray frock, over whose 
shoulder peered the cunning eyes and anifnal 
face of Peter the goatherd. 

‘ Shut the door and keep it fast,’ said Beaufoy, 
pushing the wine-flagon from him and rising to 
his feet. Then he stood thinking, drumming 
his finger-tips as before, while the group by the 
window eyed the group by the door, all mar- 
velling what would happen next. 

‘ Friar,’ he went on at last, ‘our good friend 
Jean de la Tour is, as we believe, dead; and the 
demoiselle his daughter has none of her race 
nearer than Gascony. ’Tis sorrowful — most 
sorrowful — to be thus orphaned; and, failing kin, 
I, the Suzerain of Beaufoy, must play guardian 
and comforter. So far is clear. Clear also it 
is that I must put her in safe keeping, for the 
times are troublous, as one may see in the hall 
without.’ 


170 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


‘ There is the Convent of Our ’ began 

Friar Mark as the Seigneur fell silent, but he 
got no further. 

‘ Ta, ta, ta, ta! To send such a face as that 
to a nunnery were a fool’s work. No, no ; let 
the girl be wed. Stand forth, Peter the goat- 
herd, for on the word of Beaufoy thou shalt 
have her.’ 

Shambling in his walk, Peter pushed his 
lumbering frame to the front. The terror of 
the past hours had told upon him, and the un- 
wholesome skin of his flabby cheeks hung in 
folds ; but now he stiffened himself to a 
bolder front, and his narrow eyes were keenly 
alert with the furtive watchfulness of a wild 
beast. The thing was a jest, no doubt, but who 
was he to balk the Seigneur’s humour ? Be- 
sides, when the Seigneur jested, surely a man’s 
neck was safe. 

‘ A pretty figure of a man !’ said Beaufoy 
grimly, and eyeing him as if he were a scabbed 
cur. ‘ Wilt thou have her to wife, rascal ? 
Speak, man, and do thy courtesy, or by St. 
Francis! Marmontel shall prick thee into words 
with his dagger. What? silent? Well, words 
go for little. Friar, do thou thy part, and 
quickly. Beaufoy has need of me.’ 

‘ But,’ said the monk, hesitating in his sore 



“‘IF HE SO MUCH AS TOUCH ME, I SHALL KILL HIM 


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THE JUSTICE OF BEAUFOY 171 

quandary, ‘ the damsel, perhaps, is unwill- 
ing ?’ 

‘But I am willing,’ cried Beaufoy; ‘and that 
ends it’ 

So suddenly had the thing been sprung upon 
them, that at the first neither Agathe de la Tour 
nor the goatherd grasped Beaufoy’s meaning, 
but as it dawned upon the man’s brain that this 
freak had a core of earnest, he advanced towards 
the girl with outstretched arms and a broad 
laugh upon his great mouth 

‘ Thou,’ she cried, ‘ thou ? Keep back, beast. 
If this is a jest. Seigneur de Beaufoy, end it.’ 

‘ No jest, by St. Francis!’ answered Beaufoy. 
‘ And the end is, thou shalt marry him.’ 

‘ If he so much as touch me, I shall kill him.’ 

‘ That is thy affair and his, but when 1 ride 
hence I leave six men behind me, lest the dead 
arise.’ 

‘ But ’ — and her voice ran up quavering and 
shrill, as she flung out a hand, pointing at the 
goatherd — ‘ it cannot, it cannot be. That thing 
— that — that ’ 

‘ Can it not I’ said Beaufoy coldly, ‘ but I say 
it can be, and will.’ 

‘ If my father were here 

‘Ay, but he is dead.’ 

‘It is an infamy, an infamy!’ she cried. 


172 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


‘You — who did not war on women! You — 
to take so pitiful a vengeance ! Hear me. By 
Holy Mary, if that wretch so much as fouls me 
with a finger-tip, I’ll kill him I’ 

‘ Again I say that is his affair. What thinkest 
thou of thy bride, goatherd.?’ 

‘That I’ll tame her. Seigneur, never fear;’ 
and he made as if to catch her by the arm. 

But Beaufoy’s mood had changed. 

‘ Stand back, churl, and bide thy time,’ he 
cried sternly, as the girl shrank from the 
stretched-out hands ; ‘ she is still a demoiselle 
de la Tour. As for the taming, I have my 
doubts, but for the third time I say that is thy 
affair. Do thou thy part, priest.’ 

It was a strange ceremony. The man, be- 
tween terror and uncertainty, knew not which 
way to turn, and stood shuffling his feet and 
muttering and murmuring to himself as he 
plucked at his ragged beard. The girl, drawn 
to the furthest angle of the window, was stand- 
ing bolt upright and breathing hard through 
her shut teeth, but speaking never a word. 
Near the two stood the friar, his face full of the 
trouble of his spirit, and, save for his voice, 
there was a very great silence. 

But the silence was not for long. From 
behind Beaufoy there came the grind and creak 


THE JUSTICE OF BEAUFOY 173 


of warped woodwork moving grudgingly in 
unaccustomed grooves. A panel in the wall 
was painfully pushed aside, and in the space 
appeared Jean de la Tour. 

‘ A miracle !’ cried the Seigneur, ‘ a miracle !’ 
and he broke into a laugh. ‘ Friar, thy minis- 
trations have raised the dead, and if Paul the 
Second does not canonize thee, thou hast lost 
thy due ! Seize him, two of you, and hold him 
fast. Now, priest, the bride awaits thee.’ 

‘No, no, no r cried La Tour. ‘Your trap 
has caught me ; let the bait go free. And 
listen, Beaufoy, no man of mine laid hand upon 
your churl.’ 

‘ What ? Faith of a gentleman, La Tour ?’ 

‘ Faith of a gentleman, Beaufoy.’ 

‘Then, by St. Francis! I had been richer by 
two men if you had spoken sooner. Fasten 
your loose ends, priest, and quickly. At present 
the girl is no more than three parts Madame le 
Chevrier. Finish, I say!’ 

‘ Beaufoy, Beaufoy, it would be an infamy ! 
Why, man ’ 

‘ Put a hand upon his mouth, one of you. 
For the last time, priest, finish, I say ! I have 
sworn to Peter the goatherd, and I hold to my 
oath.’ 

Again there was a silence, and across it the 


174 the BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


halting, broken voice of the monk. Then it too 
ceased, and all was still as a tomb. 

‘ Marmontel,’ said the Seigneur softly, but so 
that all might hear, ‘have yon goatherd out 
and hang him, as I swore this morning, so that 
men may know the justice of Beaufoy.’ 


VII 

HOW BEAUFOY CURED THE MAD- 
NESS OF MESNIL 

Thrice during the lifetime of Raimond, Seig- 
neur de Beaufoy, was the Suzerainty smitten 
by a calamity that was not of war. 

Once it was famine, once it was plague, and 
once it was the terror of superstition ; and, 
grievous as were the first and the second, they 
were as a summer storm is to a winter’s tempest 
compared with the third. Hunger and the fear 
of death drew men together, and bound the 
high and low by bonds of sympathy and help ; 
but the unknown terror sowed suspicion be- 
tween friend and friend, rent asunder tenderest 
relationships, and set vassal and lord in a sharp 
antagonism. 

In the face of famine Raimond de Beaufoy 
had made common cause with Beaufoy’s people, 
remitting taxes, emptying granaries, and con- 
trolling doles in which he himself took no more 


176 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


than a man’s share until the grinding necessity 
passed, and the whole heart of the Suzerainty 
warmed to the lord that shared the sorrows and 
losses of his people. 

The pestilence which swept the Seigneurie 
in ’52 — the year before the fight of Castillon 
put an end to the English wars — had reaped 
its harvest chiefly in the villages, setting a pre- 
cedent which Paris and the towns of the lie de 
France followed fourteen years later, when, in 
two summer months, forty thousand fell to the 
swing of the sickle. If here, again, Beaufoy’s 
people had full cause to bless the love and 
labour of their Seigneur, Raimond de Beaufoy 
had his own reason to find a kernel of good in 
the bushel of evil, since out of the horrors of 
plague and the darkness of mourning he won 
his wife, as has been already told. 

It was in 1484, the year the Estates met at 
Tours, that the blight fell upon Beaufoy. The 
spring had been late and broken, a vicious blaze 
of sunshine alternating with biting frosts, so 
that the vineyards and the corn-land had alike 
suffered. In June a cloud-burst set the rivers 
aflood, so that the water stood knee- deep in 
the hamlets on their banks, and the lower-lying 
pastures became a rotting morass. In July a 
thunderbolt struck the church of St. Francis of 


THE MADNESS OF MESNIL 177 


Beaufoy and shattered its belfry, and later in 
the same month the caving in of a quarry 
crushed three men of Charnex into a grim 
parody of humanity. In August the mildew 
corrupted the poor remnants of the frosted 
vineyards, and an ergot devoured the weak 
ears of corn. In September a murrain seized 
upon sheep and cattle, and byre and field were 
swept with the besom of death. Strange sick- 
nesses, or what to credulous ignorance seemed 
strange, broke out in every village, and from 
April to late autumn the months were punc- 
tuated by accident and fatality. 

No one of these disasters was strange to 
Beaufoy. Blight, storm, sickness, and sudden 
death were old enemies, but all focussed on one 
bitter summer overbore reason, and so it came 
that from whispers men in their terror called 
aloud ‘ Witchcraft !’ and the Suzerainty was in 
a ferment of unrest and suspicion. 

From the peasants it spread to the Chiteau. 

‘ A pack of fools, Marmontel !’ said Beaufoy 
wrathfully. ‘ Did lightning never blaze in 
Angoumois before i*’ 

‘ Ay, Seigneur ; but to kill a priest ’ — and 
the squire shook his head solemnly — ‘ that 
truly was the work of the devil.’ 

‘ And since when have you been so fond of 

12 


178 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


a monk ?’ scoffed his master. ‘ Why, man, I 
have known you threaten to hang one in his 
own girdle ; and you would have done it, too, 
had I but nodded. Does a gray frock charm a 
man, forsooth, that a thunderbolt shall not 
harm him ? A pack of fools, I say again — a 
pack of fools !’ 

‘ But, Seigneur, look at the corn and 
wine ’ 

‘ I would to the Lord we could ! Now, that 
is serious. A monk, more or less, we could 
spare, but scant bread and spoilt drink hit us 
sorely.’ 

‘ Did I not say so ?’ cried Marmontel, press- 
ing forward in his eagerness. ‘ It is witchcraft. 
Seigneur, and until fire has swept Beaufoy there 
will be no man safe.’ 

‘ Tush !’ — and Raimond de Beaufoy beat his 
hand on the table by which he sat. ‘Was it 
witchcraft four years back when the wheat 
rotted in the wet ? Was it witchcraft or a May 
frost the year before when the vines went black 
in a night ? Was it witchcraft or a fool’s choice 
of a site that drowned Bourjeu in the river’s 

overflow ? Was it witchcraft But there, a 

pack of fools, brainless as hares ! As for fire, 
I know what you would be at, Marmontel : you 
would have me set stake and pile faggot, and so 


THE MADNESS OF MESNIL 179 


burn incense to the devil. But I’ll have none 
of that, and the man who takes the law into his 
own hands must deal with Raimond de Beaufoy. 
By the Lord, he’ll sup sorrow for his pains ! 
You and they have gone crazed, Marmontel ; 
but I have medicine will cure you all, and that 
you had better tell them. When the plague 
swept us, there was no way of staying the terror 
in the quaking wretches save the way that 
Madame, my wife, took ; and may God remember 
it to her in His mercy, as I have no doubt He 
has, and will ; for when they saw a white-faced 
woman go amongst them as tranquil and calm 
as if she did no more than her house duties in 
the midst of her maids, they took heart in their 
shame, and so a frail woman saved Beaufoy. 
But this is a new terror, and needs a new cure, 
and, by St. Francis! I know the medicine, and 
will deal it out in no small doles. Rod and 
cord and branding- iron for the good of their 
souls — these, friend Marmontel, are the drugs 
that Beaufoy needs to purge its terror and mad- 
ness, and, the saints helping me, purged by 
these it shall be, if needs must.’ 

‘ But, Seigneur, the witchcraft ’ 

‘ Is of your own making. Get you gone now 
and warn them. What I have set my oath to 
I will do, for all my threescore and nine years.’ 

12 — 2 


i8o THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


‘ Ay,’ said Marmontel in his beard as he 
tramped away from the justice-room, across the 
broad hall, and down the corridor to his 
quarters ; ‘ but, by reason of those same nine- 
and-sixty years, the Seigneur knows less of 
Beaufoy and its temper than I do. ’Tis a pity 
the Sieur Frangois is away earwigging the 
young King. He would do more for the 
Suzerainty here on the spot than he will in 
Paris. A plague upon Paris ! a plague on the 
Seigneur’s temper ! a plague upon this devil’s 
work abroad ! a plague on the Lord knows 
what all !’ 

But though he gnawed his moustache in his 
vexation, he spoke no word aloud, for Beaufoy ’s 
men had a wholesome fear of the wrath and 
justice of their master. 

Four days later the storm broke. 

‘ I am your man. Seigneur,’ said Marmontel, 
with a sullen look on his face that was not wont 
to be there. ‘ For seven generations, or, 
maybe, eight, I and mine have served you and 
yours ; and so, though I think the folk are 
right, I tell you there is bad work over at 
Mesnil. Mind, I say again, I think the folk 
are right ; but if there was a burning at Mesnil 
and you not told, you would say I was no true 
servant to Beaufoy.’ 


THE MADNESS OF MESNIL i8i 


The Seigneur was seated under the shadow 
of the great oak that grew to the south of the 
justice- room, and as he looked out into the 
breathless swelter of the sun, he had no mind 
to face the heat. 

‘ What !’ said he, ‘ has a cow slipped its calf, 
or another barrel of ale gone soui'? Wait till 
the cool, Marmontel.’ 

‘ It is murder, Seigneur,’ answered the Squire 
curtly ; ‘ and murder’s still murder in Beaufoy, 
whether it be for hate, greed, or witchcraft.’ 

‘ Murder — and at Mesnil ?’ and Beaufoy 
straightened himself in his chair. ‘ Come,’ 
he went on sternly, ‘ is this not more of your 
fool’s terror ?’ 

‘ Am I afraid for the killing of a babe ?' said 
Marmontel with a fine contempt. ‘ I trow not. 
But the folk at Mesnil are wild, and Jean 
Troyes is wildest of all. Can a man blame 
him ? A son born to him two weeks ago, after 
fifteen years of prayers, and now made away 
with, unbaptized. My faith. Seigneur, if, thirty 
years ago, one had laid hands on the little 
Sieur ’ 

‘ What ! On a Beaufoy ? 

‘ For that’ — and Marmontel laughed bitterly 
— ‘ flesh is flesh, and blood’s blood. The poor 
at least are akin to the rich in the love of 


1 82 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


father and child. The Mesnil folk are men 
and women as well as we.’ 

‘ And what of T roves’ lad ?’ 

‘ Last night he was there ; this morning the 
father left mother and babe asleep, and when 
she woke he was gone, and without a trace. 
Gone, Seigneur — a two weeks’ babe. What is 
that but witchcraft ?’ 

For a moment Beaufoy was staggered, and, 
as the vague terror that was abroad in the land 
seized him, his face went as white as his peaked 
beard. Then he rallied. 

‘ They have searched ?* 

‘ Oh, ay,’ answered Marmontel grimly, 
‘ wherever a two weeks’ babe could hide 
himself, but they found nothing. Marie Bische 
took care of that.’ 

‘ Marie Bische ?* 

‘ Marie Bische, Seigneur. Listen,’ and Mar- 
montel ticked his points off on his fingers. 
‘ Four months ago, Theuret, the miller, gave 
her short weight and she cursed him. The 
mill-dam burst, and left naught behind it but 
the great grindstones. In June, Gillem, the 
waggoner, drank her wine, and would pay 
naught. She cursed him, and three weeks after 
he was drowned at the ford. They say he was 
in liquor, but what of that.? He is dead. Five 


THE MADNESS OF MESNIL 183 


days ago, Friar Hugues rebuked her, and 
sharply, too, that she never went to confession. 
Friar Hugues is dead of a thunderbolt. Yester- 
day the woman T royes cried out upon her for a 
witch, and to-day the woman Troyes is child- 
less. Is not all that witchcraft ? Small wonder 
Mesnil is wild ! Well, God be praised, she’ll 
work no more wickedness !’ 

‘ How ?’ 

‘ Because,’ said Marmontel coolly, and look- 
ing up at the sun to reckon the hour as he 
spoke, ‘she is hanged by this. They dared 
not burn her lest it take too much time.’ 

‘And you,’ cried Beaufoy furiously, ‘have 
held me here in talk of a set purpose ! By St. 
Francis ’ 

‘ No, no, no !’ cried Marmontel. ‘ Swear 
naught, Seigneur, swear naught ! I told you 
the folk were right.’ 

‘ Pray God they may still think so when I 
am done with them !’ answered Beaufoy be- 
tween his teeth. ‘ And for you, if you hope 
for forgiveness, see that we are on the road 
in ten minutes.’ 

The narrow byway which made up the one 
dirty street of Mesnil was in a ferment, and 
even the unlooked-for and unwelcome presence 
of the Seigneur, with ten men at his back, did 


1 84 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


no more than quell in part the uproar. From 
a dozen jostling groups came the babble of 
many tongues, with here and there a woman’s 
shrill voice screaming high above the conflict 
of words. No one gave heed to the other, 
and all emulously pushed, chattered, and cried 
in the useless endeavour to secure an audience. 

At the clatter of hoofs, the tumult slackened 
and the groups drew together, as if to gain 
strength by numbers. No one spoke aloud, 
but the crowd whispered and muttered as it 
surged in the jaws of the dusty street, and the 
looks that met Beaufoy were both sullen and 
defiant. 

For his part, he had no thought either to 
conciliate or to temporize, and came straight 
to the point. Halting three paces from the 
crowd, he faced it sternly. 

‘ No lying now, fools ! Where is Marie 
Bische ?’ 

Then indeed there was a silence, and the 
eyes that had met his were turned aside. It is 
easier to do a fellow to death in heat than tell 
of it in cold blood, and for answer they stared 
at one another and were dumb. Besides, who- 
ever spoke might have to bear the brunt of the 
act of all. 

‘ You had tongues enough to wake the dead 


THE MADNESS OF MESNIL 185 


five minutes back, and to use them now will be 
your wisdom. Where is Marie Bische ?’ 

Then that happened which nine times out 
of ten happens in a mixed crowd — a woman 
answered, and, though she spoke from behind 
and in concealment, it was a woman’s courage, 
and not a man’s. 

‘Tongues, sure enough, Raimond de Beaufoy, 
but not tongues that could wake Marie Bische, 
the witch. As to where she is, ride on and find 
her, for she’s plain to be seen.’ 

‘ Go thou, Marmontel,’ said the Seigneur 
curtly. 

Then he sat back in his saddle, and the two 
groups faced one another, silent, in the sun- 
light. 

Round between the houses went the squire 
in haste. He knew Beaufoy well, and the set 
hardness of his face frightened him. Had he 
been hot with wrath, there would have been 
hope for the men of Mesnil, since, even in his 
anger, reason would move the Seigneur. Here 
there was no anger, and so the mood was 
dangerous. More than that, Marmontel knew 
the people as few knew them, and to him they 
were so much stubble waiting a spark to set 
the blaze roaring. Let Beaufoy strike in his 
present mood, and the spark would fall. 


1 86 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


Under five minutes he was back again, and, 
save for the shuffle of feet in the dust and the 
rattle of steel bits as the horses tossed their 
heads amongst the crowds of flies that worried 
them, there had been silence. 

‘ Well ? Briefly now.’ 

‘ Dead, Seigneur. I told you how it would 
be. You can see tl e top of the oak above the 
thatch there to the left.’ 

‘Take four of these slayers of women and 
bind them. Men, I mean, though I doubt not 
the women did their part. Trust a woman to 
spite a woman. Four, and neither pick nor 
choose. For Beaufoy’s sake, I cannot hang 
all Mesnil, so four will suffice. Now, hearken ! 
So sure as there is no witchcraft in this thing, 
you four hang. By St. Francis of Beaufoy, I 
set my oath to that ! Where is the house of 
this Jean Troyes? Babes of even no more 
than two weeks’ age cannot slip out of the 
world and leave no trace behind. Two of you 
guard these fellows, and, for your own sakes, 
guard them well. The rest follow.’ 

To the right there was a broad stretch of 
pasture-land, seared into a brown crispness by 
the strong August heat. Across this rode 
Beaufoy, led by half a dozen of the villagers and 
followed by his troop, with the rest of Mesnil 


THE MADNESS OF MESNIL 187 


straggling at their horses’ heels. An oak, a 
chestnut, or an elm broke the level of the grass, 
with here and there a thickwt where a small 
underwood of hazels and beech was bound into 
a tangle by a thick growth of brambles. In 
the shelter of one of these was a thatched 
hut. 

‘ See,’ said one of the women over her 
shoulder, and pointing ahead with a lean arm, 
‘ J ean T royes lives there.’ 

For answer, Beaufoy nodded, and, without 
halt, the troop moved forward. Once at the 
hut-door, there was a pause and a scattering. 
Mesnil had done the Seigneur’s will, but 
Mesnil had no interest in the result ; the thing 
was witchcraft, and so the interest of Mesnil 
was under an oak half a league away. 

‘Now,’ said Beaufoy, dismounting, ‘search! 
T wo of you take the house in hand ; the rest 
spread and make a cast in a circle, widening 
the circuit with each round,’ and he turned into 
the hut. 

At the door he met Jean Troyes and his 
wife, their faces stolid and expressionless. 
Amid the hard necessities of a peasant’s life 
there was no room for violent joys or sorrows, 
or, if they were there, the expression of them 
did not come easy. Where the stomach is 


i88 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


importunate, its cries drown the insistences of 
the passions. 

In reply to the Seigneur the tale was told by 
the man briefly enough, boldly even in its curt- 
ness — the woman standing by him while he 
spoke. 

‘So,’ said Beaufoy when he finished, ‘you 
left the two asleep, the mother and child. 
Within an hour of going out to the sheep you 
were back, and the boy was missing. How far 
is the nearest water ?’ 

‘ A well. Seigneur 

‘ No, a river.’ 

* A league. Seigneur, a league, no less ; for, 
see you, the streams are dried, and ’ 

‘ Ay, I know. That settles it. Be at ease, 
mother ; the little lad is not far off.’ 

As if to prove him a prophet, at that moment 
Marmontel came panting in, a pitiful tiny 
bundle of coarse but clean linen cloth in his 
hands ; and at the sight of it the woman gasped 
and staggered, clinging to Jean Troyes for 
support. 

‘ It was in the thicket. Seigneur, laid away 
amongst the dry bracken, and ’ 

‘ Ay, ay, ay !’ said Beaufoy, with his hard 
eyes on the mother. ‘ I guessed something of 
the sort. Lay it on the settle yonder and get 


THE MADNESS OF MESNIL 189 


you gone. Shut the door behind you, and see 
to it that those gaping fools keep their distance.’ 
Then, as the door closed more softly than was 
the squire’s wont, he cried, ‘ Ho ! Marmontel ! 
you heard my oath anent those four ? Aye ? 
Then do justice.’ 

‘ But, Seigneur ’ — and Marmontel halted, half 
within and half without, so that through the 
slant in the door the sunlight above his head 
streamed in on the linen bundle — ‘ there is 
danger, and I would advise ’ 

But Beaufoy rounded on him with a snarl : 

‘ Who art thou to advise ? Do thou as thou 
art bid, lest the four be made five.’ 

And, knowing Raimond de Beaufoy as he 
did, Marmontel slipped out into the sunlight 
very quietly and with a white face. 

‘ Hearken !’ said the Seigneur to the two who 
were left, but with his eyes on the woman 
rather than on the man. ‘ Of evil intent in this 
I acquit you both ; and you, Jean Troyes, I 
acquit of all knowledge, good or bad. Now, 
dame, tell your tale, and this time let it be 
the truth. So far you have lied, and five have 
died, or are dying, for the lie — though, for that 
matter, the four will get their deserts and no 
more. Again, I say, the truth !’ 

For a moment she stood silent, breathing 


190 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


hard, and her hands clenching and unclenching 
in her trouble of spirit. Then she dropped on 
her knees, but not to the Seigneur. Gripping 
Jean Troyes by the arm, she buried her face in 
his rough sleeve and fell a-sobbing. 

‘ I had no thought of evil to another,’ she said 
between her sobs, ‘ only — only — I feared to lose 
your love. Y ou were so bound to the little lad. 
I loved him too. For fifteen years I yearned 
for a babe, and God knows I loved him ; but 
you were dearest, and my heart was sore lest 
you would hate me.’ 

Lifting her head, she looked up at him, dry- 
eyed, but her mouth worked as if with a palsy, 
and her fingers plucked and fondled his sleeve 
in her agony of loss and apprehension. On his 
part, from his six feet of height Jean Troyes 
looked down at her stolidly. This passion was 
a thing beyond his comprehending, and her 
words touched his dull wit but slightly. Not 
so with Beaufoy. His face darkened, and it 
was with hot wrath in his eyes that he turned 
upon her. 

‘ What ?’ he cried ; ‘ you killed the babe lest 
it come betwixt the father’s love and ’ 

‘ No, no, no !’ she screamed. ‘ Never believe 
it, Jean. I overlaid the child, and dared not 
tell you the truth. Never the other, never 


THE MADNESS OF MESNIL 191 


the other. You believe me, Jean, you be- 
lieve me?’ 

‘ Oh, ay, I believe you,* he answered heavily ; 
‘but it’s the Seigneur’s mercy we’re not all 
hanged for your foolishness.’ 

Whereat she broke out weeping in earnest, 
and fell to mumbling his hand, as a dog might. 
Half an hour later, when Beaufoy rode once 
more into Mesnil, the crowd was still there, 
though not, as before, massed in the roadway, 
but gathered in four separate groups about as 
many doors, because of the mourning within. 
Midway between these were his men, silent and 
sullen. Their sympathies lay with the towns- 
folk, and but for discipline, self-interest and a 
wholesome fear, Raimond de Beaufoy would 
that hour have had a revolt upon his hands. 
Even as it was, a murmur of hate and wrath 
greeted him from these four centres as he drew 
bridle. 

‘Is all done as I bade ?’ he said curtly to 
Marmontel, heeding the peasants not at all. 
‘ Then let us ride on ; but not to Beaufoy, lest 
these fools think we fear them, and fly for 
shelter.’ 

So out of the further end of the village they 
rode at a slow trot, and on for a mile or two 
towards Grandfrai. Then the Seigneur curved 


192 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


round to the left, and took his way leisurely 
back to the Chiteau. Presently he called 
Marmontel. 

‘ Tell me of this Marie Bische, who was she?’ 

*A widow, Seigneur, and until these things 
— that is, until — I mean, she was accounted 
harmless enough. She lived yonder and he 
pointed ahead to a hamlet that lay by the river’s 
bank on the left, and a scant half-league from 
Mesnil. * She had one daughter, Jeanne, who 
six months ago married Pierre Lange, and all 
three dwelt together. Folks say that between 
mother and daughter there was but little to 
choose, and that for these weeks past Jeanne 
has gone as one who dreamed dreams, that she 
shuns the neighbours, and sits in corners 
mouthing to herself.’ 

‘ Saints give me patience !’ cried the Seigneur 
testily. ‘ Has Beaufoy gone mad ? If there 
were no such witches in France, God help the 
generation to come ! But look, Marmontel, 
yonder to the left ; what fresh folly is this ?’ 

They had forded the river and ridden up the 
slope which further on led to the Chateau. 
Now, as Beaufoy turned in his saddle and 
pointed to the cluster of houses where had lived 
the unhappy Marie Bische, it was clear there 
was some excited stir afoot. The river-bank 


THE MADNESS OF MESNIL 193 


was thronged, and through the quick shiftings 
of the crowd they could see a woman being 
dragged to the water’s edge. Then there was 
a pause, an instant’s struggle, and a scream as 
the poor wretch was flung headlong into the 
current. 

‘By St. Francis, it is Jeanne Lange!’ cried 
Beaufoy. ‘ The mother first and now the 
daughter. Ride, fellows, ride ! I would not 
have her drown for the Seigneurie itself.’ 

Down the slope they cantered, and, fast as 
they rode, the black ball that swung so help- 
lessly in the current came well-nigh as fast to 
meet them, while along the further bank ran the 
crowd, keeping pace with its victim and shout- 
ing curses as it ran. 

‘ Let her be !’ they cried, as they came abreast 
of the horsemen. ‘ Let her be I ’Tis her due 
and no more, for she has confessed.’ 

But Beaufoy never halted. Gripping the 
saddle hard with his knees, he gave his beast 
the spur and plunged in a dozen yards below 
the drowning woman, and, swimming into mid- 
stream, waited for her. 

‘ Your hand I For the Lord’s sake, your 
hand !’ he shouted as she came near. 

But the white face rolled under as he spoke, 
and he had scant time to catch her by the skirts 


194 the BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


as she swept past. After that it was no more 
than a stout horse’s work to find the bank, and 
in five minutes she was gasping for breath 
on the dry turf, wet as a draggled hay-wisp, 
but none the worse. Then it was plain why 
the Seigneur’s cry had gone unheeded : her 
hands were bound fast by the thumbs behind 
her back, so fast that the flesh stood level with 
the cord. 

A frail slip of a girl she was, for all her wife- 
hood, and looked the frailer for the close cling- 
ing of her sodden garments. Her hair had 
come unbound in the struggle and was wisped 
in wet tangles about her face, so that, as she 
stood in the sunlight, whimpering, she looked 
like some water-pixie dragged out unwillingly 
to the solid earth. 

‘ Off with you, Marmontel, and cut the cords !’ 
said Beaufoy. ‘ Witch forsooth ! She’s but a 
half-grown child ! Look at her mouthing her 
swollen thumbs, just like a babe !’ 

‘But, Seigneur,’ answered Marmontel, slipping 
his dagger back into its sheath, ‘ she confessed. 
Hear them clamouring yonder.’ 

The Squire was right. Clamouring they were, 
and could words have killed, there would have 
been an end to the reign of Raimond de Beau- 
foy. But the clamour was not merely curses 


THE MADNESS OF MESNIL 195 


and threatening, but the sharp insistence that 
the woman had indeed confessed. 

‘ Ay, ay, I hear !’ said the Seigneur. * What 
of this confession, woman ?’ 

Then the white face flamed red, and, ceasing 
her whimpers, Jeanne Lange pressed forward 
to Beaufoy’s knee. 

‘ It is true, Seigneur,’ she whispered under 
her breath, and stammering as she spoke. ‘ It 
is true I said so, and yet it was a lie. Look at 
them, the brute beasts ! I am a woman, and 
they would have searched me for the witch- 
mark openly and in God’s light — me, a woman ! 
Could 1 face the shame of it ? Better drown 
than that ; so I lied.’ 

‘ By St. F rancis of Beaufoy, a brave wench, 
and a good lie !’ he cried. ‘ Do you hear, fellows ? 
A brave wench, I say, and had I a daughter 
she would have done no less in a like case. 
Have her up behind you, Marmontel, and set 
her in charge of the castle maids with all haste. 
To-morrow ’ — and leaning back in his saddle, 
he shook his fist towards the howling mob — 
‘ to-morrow I will settle with these scum. A 
brave wench ! God send Beaufoy a hundred 
more such witches !’ 

But as they rode up the slope, Marmontel 
thought in his heart that the reckoning between 

13—2 


196 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


Mesnil and its lord might come sooner than the 
Seigneur counted upon, and after a different 
manner than he supposed. When the madness 
of terror is added to sore hearts and hot blood, 
he would be a rash man who set a limit to the 
risks. 

And Marmontel was right in his forebodings. 
Dusk had no more than half fallen when the 
guard that kept watch by the tower that over- 
looked the great gate in the outer circuit of 
walls sent in hot haste for the Squire, with such 
news that he, in turn, sought his master, breath- 
less and as near terror as was in his nature. 

‘ All Beaufoy’s afoot !’ he cried, breaking in 
on the Seigneur with scant ceremony. ‘ Not 
Mesnil alone, but Beaufoy from east to west ; 
and what can we do with our dozen men-at-arms.? 
The slope is black with them.’ 

But it took more than a threat of siege to 
move the Seigneur. At nine-and-sixty the fires 
have cooled, and it takes a strong blast to set 
them glowing. The natural forces, too, are 
abated, and after such a day as he had passed, 
small wonder if Beaufoy’s nerves and muscles 
were alike slack. 

‘ Chut !’ said he. * A handful of peasants 
with their bellies full of sour wine ! What can 
they do, poor fools ?’ 


THE MADNESS OF MESNIL 197 


‘ A handful of peasants !’ echoed Marmontel. 
‘ By my faith, Beaufoy’s men have shown 
before this what a handful of peasants were 
worth when their blood was hot ! Am I a 
coward, Seigneur, to be frightened by a handful 
of peasants ? But this is serious, for they have 
their womenfolk with them, and even a rabbit 
will fight when the doe looks on. And here 
are we, short-handed, with half our men playing 
fool in Paris at the heels of the young Sieur. 
We must make terms. Seigneur, and promptly, 
or Beaufoy burns, that’s sure.’ 

‘ Terms ?' cried the Seigneur sharply, a world 
of scorn in his voice. ‘Terms ? What terms, 
babbler i*’ 

‘ There is the wench ’ began Marmontel, 

and as he spoke he had the grace to grow 
shamefaced, and the discretion to look aside. 
But he got no further than the four words when 
the Seigneur stopped him with a gesture, plain 
even to his discreetness. 

‘ Look you,’ said he, leaning across the table 
at which he sat, and speaking very slowly, ‘ I 
would not give up a hair of her head to these 
rogues to save Beaufoy root and branch. What, 
man ! She is my guest, and, by St. Francis, 
a guest is safe at Beaufoy, whether crowned 
King or helpless wench ! You mean well, 


198 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


Marmontel, so I pardon you ; but a nicer sense 
of what fits with Beaufoy’s honour would mend 
the future. Now, keep your wits clear. How 
many are there 

‘ It is hard to guess, Seigneur. There are 
scores here and scores there, and they flit 
about like rabbits in a warren ; but there are 
enough.’ 

‘ Armed ? 

‘ Peasant fashion. Seigneur — sickles, scythes, 
flails, with here and there a pike. But these go 
for naught — they threaten fire.’ 

‘ There are women, you say ?’ 

‘ Ay, Seigneur, and worse than the men in 
their ravings. There are the wives of those 
four ’ 

Beaufoy nodded. 

‘ I know. My conscience is easy there ; they 
got their deserts. Once let lawlessness spread 
in the Seigneurie, and there would be more than 
four widows set wailing. As for the women, 
they have my pity, for to them come the 
struggle and sorrow. I know enough. Let us 
go to the gate.’ 

Lifting his sword from the table, Beaufoy 
buckled it on in silence, and spoke no more 
until they were midway across the space that 
lay between the Chateau and the outer walls. 


THE MADNESS OF MESNIL 199 


Then he paused and laid his hand on the other’s 
shoulder. 

‘ If evil comes of this night’s work, and you 
live through it, say this to Francois, my son : 
“ Deal gently with these poor folk ; they cannot 
see as we see, and are mad with terror and loss, 
else Beaufoy’s walls had never heard what they 
hear now. Let him shed as little blood as may 
be, and show love and mercy rather than a hard 
rule.” I, perhaps, have been rough at times, 
and it is borne in upon me that what I forget 
God Almighty keeps in mind. You under- 
stand.^ Tut, tut! why should a man whinge 
like a girl ? Hark to the wretches I They 
howl like a pack of wolves with a deer at 
bay I’ 

‘What can touch you that does not touch 
me. Seigneur ?’ cried Marmontel, with a shake 
in his voice, ‘ and what am I and mine here for 
but that you and yours may live ?’ 

‘ Remember, nevertheless,’ answered Beau- 
foy, and strode onward to the great gate. 

There he halted ; and when he cried in his 
stern arrogance, ‘ Get you back fifty paces, all of 
you, while I come without I’ the habit of obedi- 
ence was so strong that the tide of wrath rolled 
backward down the slope, and the mob kept its 
ground below like a wild beast straining on its 


200 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


chain, but curbed back by the strength of the 
links. 

Bidding the guard unlock a postern and close 
it fast behind him again, Beaufoy went two 
yards forward alone, and then paused. So for 
the time the two stood silent, the mob and the 
one man facing it, silent except for mutterings 
and that subtle, nameless sound that always 
comes from numbers. In spite of their widely 
differing strength, each knew and respected the 
other’s powers. It was the man who spoke 
first. 

‘ My children ' 

But from the mass below, black and solid in 
the quick growth of the night, there came back 
a sharp snarl like the outcry of a kennel of 
hounds, and above the uproar a voice — a 
woman’s voice — answered, clear and shrill, one 
word, and one only : 

‘ Hangman !’ 

‘Come back. Seigneur!’ cried Marmontel 
softly ; ‘ come back and let us parley ; they 
mean murder I’ 

But Beaufoy gave no heed, or, if he heard, 
his answer was to go forward another ten 
paces down the slope. Then those behind him 
saw him fling his open hand up and hold it 
there commanding silence ; and when he spoke 



DRAWING HIS SWORD, HE SNAPPED IT ACROSS HIS KNEE. 






r 









\ 



A 


THE MADNESS OF MESNIL 201 


again, there was that in his voice compelling 
obedience. It was no longer the father to the 
children, but the master to the servants. For 
five, seven, ten minutes he went on ; and when 
he ceased, those who listened had heard the 
tale of false witchcraft, of Marie Bische and of 
Jeanne Lange, fully told. 

‘ Now,’ cried he when he had made an end 
of the telling, ‘ hearken, you men ; for to you I 
speak, and not to these silly women, who under- 
stand reason no more than does a sheep. What 
is it you want that Beaufoy can give ?’ 

From right and left, and here and there in 
the shadows of the crowd, came the answer : 
‘ Jeanne Lange, the witch !’ 

‘ Women’s voices, every one,’ said Beaufoy, 

‘ and, what is more, you know she is no witch. 
But I asked you, “ What can Beaufoy give ?” 
Beaufoy cannot give Jeanne Lange, for Jeanne 
Lange stands for Beaufoy’s honour. I and 
mine will die first. Answer, Beaufoy’s men !’ 

And a voice shrieked out of the darkness, 

‘ Give yourself, murderer !’ 

‘ A woman again,’ said the Seigneur. ‘ Does 
she speak for you, Beaufoy’s men ? Do you 
take Raimond de Beaufoy in quittance for 
Jeanne Lange? Good!’ 

Drawing his sword, he snapped it across his 


202 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


knee and flung the halves behind him ; then he 
strode down the slope. 

From below came the sudden buzz of many 
voices, and through the gloom the Seigneur 
could see the black mass of the crowd heave 
and sway in its agitation. Then it broke in 
the centre to let him pass, and closed in behind, 
thronging him ; but the hands that grasped 
him were friends’ hands, and the arms flung 
about him were friends’ arms, and the roar that 
filled the night was as of one voice, ‘ Long live 
Beaufoy !’ 

‘ My children, my children !’ he cried ; ‘ now 
and always the children of my love !’ 

Thenceforward, if what the chronicler says 
be true, there was no more talk of witchcraft 
within the four corners of the Suzerainty. 
Beaufoy had cast it out the night he offered his 
life for that of Jeanne Lange. 


BEAUFOY’S TOKEN 


Upon all the hill-slopes that fell away from the 
stretch of level turf where stood the Chiteau of 
Beaufoy, upon the fat cornfields and vigorous 
green vineyards, upon the dull circuit of woods 
that lay in the far, very far, distance, the May 
sunshine was gracious and gay. Even the gray 
walls, mossy with age towards the north and 
west, were smothered in brightness, against 
which the huge shadow of Beaufoy Oak fell in a 
sprawling black blur. 

Beaufoy Oak was older than Beaufoy Castle 
by many a year, and yet the great pile dated 
back close on four centuries, to the time of 
Louis the Young. It stood to the south of the 
Chateau, and between it and the great circuit of 
walls which, gripping Beaufoy in mighty arms 
of stone, held their nursling safe against many 
a desperate assault. They were not always 
loved, these great lords who called themselves 
Sieurs of Mesnil and Counts of Charnex, and 


204 the beaufoy romances 


but few generations passed in which they had 
not had to fight for bare life itself. 

Doubtless, being who and what they were, 
they carried things with a high hand, their 
justice knowing little of mercy and much of 
revenge, but to their credit be it said they 
were this much better than their neighbours, 
in that they curbed their greed, seeking wealth 
neither by aggression against the strong 
nor by spoliation of the weak. Woe to the 
fox who held back from Beaufoy Beaufoy’s 
rights ! But equal woe to the wolf that harried 
Beaufoy’s chickens ! The Seigneur had a long 
arm, a longer memory, and a deadly patience. 
Sooner or later fox or wolf paid through his 
skin. 

Where the black shadow of Beaufoy’s Oak 
fell deepest and blackest were the long, narrow 
windows of the Justice-room, a dismal, sombre 
place, that was a fit stage for the scenes enacted 
upon its flags. Here it was Raimond de Beau- 
foy’s custom to hold his court day by day, and 
here on this May morning in 1490 he listened 
to a tale that whipped even his age into a storm 
of wrath. 

Charnex, from whence the Beaufoys drew 
their title of Count, had been harried in the 
night, and upon the nearest to his hand — 


BEAUFOY’S TOKEN 


205 

and his body-squire — the old Seigneur had let 
loose his wrath. 

‘ But, Seigneur,’ cried Marmontel, ‘ is it my 
fault that Charnex is burnt ?’ 

‘ But, fool,’ cried back Raimond de Beaufoy 
furiously, ‘ is it my fault ? Must I play watch- 
dog while you sleep ?’ And he struck the haft 
of his dagger angrily on the oak table by which 
he sat, and glared up at the Squire. 

‘ By your leave. Seigneur, one minute. Last 
night ’ 

‘ Last night ?’ broke in the old Sieur. * Quit 
last night and come to this morning. To my 
men of Charnex last night and this morning are 
as far apart as life and death. Come to to-day, 
I say.’ 

‘ To-day, Seigneur,’ answered Marmontel 
sullenly, ‘ there are five widows in Charnex.’ 

‘Ay, five — five, and who killed my men, 
Marmontel, and where wert thou at the 
killing ?’ 

‘If you would but listen. Seigneur, it was 
like this. Last night ’ 

‘ The saints grant me patience with thee and 
thy last nights! There, go thy own way.’ 
And Beaufoy sprang to his feet and fell to 
pacing the flags, his white peaked beard 
wagging in his ill-suppressed wrath. 


2o6 the beaufoy romances 


‘ ’Tis shorter so, Seigneur, for I and words 
have little acquaintance.’ 

‘ Ay, and thou and deeds less,’ scoffed Beau- 
foy, ‘ or there had been fewer widows in 
Charnex.’ 

‘ Last night,’ went on Marmontel, holding 
doggedly to his point, ‘ word came from Mesnil, 
seven leagues to the east, that ’ 

‘ That led thee on a shadow-hunt, while 
Charnex, two leagues to the west, was harried ! 
Well, between the coward and the fool, I choose 
the fool. Hadst thou been poltroon, Marmontel, 
Beaufoy ’s Oak had borne fruit ere nightfall, for 
all that thee and thine have served me and mine 
for seven generations. Would to the Lord I 
had twenty years back, I would so misuse these 
widow-makers that all Angoumois would shiver 
at Beaufoy’s vengeance as it did three-and- 
twenty years back. It grinds my very soul to 
be so broken and outworn. God ! give me 
twenty years, twenty years !’ and he smote his 
palms together in his passion. 

‘ God grant us the young Sieur !’ answered 
Marmontel bluntly. ‘ That prayer is more to 
the purpose.’ 

Raimond de Beaufoy halted abruptly in his 
wrath, and swung round furiously on the Squire. 

‘What?’ he cried. ‘You dare? You? 


BEAUFOY’S TOKEN 


207 


Listen to me. There are five lying dead there 
at Charnex, and I would not crook that finger 
to hold back Fran9ois de Beaufoy from making 
a sixth with them. He sought to come to his 
own over-early, did Frangois de Beaufoy, and, 
by the Lord ! he learned who was Seigneur. 
Let him starve where he will ; I am done with 
him ! Now, Marmontel, as to Charnex ?’ 

‘As to Charnex,’ replied Marmontel, ‘ I say 
again, had we the young Sieur back, there 
would be no need to talk of Charnex. You 
can kill me. Seigneur, but that’s the truth, and 
for my part I hold it was lies they told you, and 
the lad meant no more than to set his youth 
between your age and the troubles of such a 
heavy handful as Beaufoy is at times. Lies 
grow like a toadstool, Seigneur, and he who 
swallows them may look to be poisoned. 

‘ As to Charnex, what happened was this : 
The beasts were housed, the folks abed, and 
Charnex as dark as a three-quarters moon would 
let it be, when some horsemen clattered in — a 
dozen say some, some twenty, others two score. 
You know how it is. Seigneur : the poor souls 
were wild with terror, and beyond counting. 
For my part I think there was a scant half-score. 
It was the beasts they were after, and not many 
of them — a few sheep and a bullock or two. 


208 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


Would to the Lord they had let them go! it 
had been cheaper. But Charnex holds what 
Charnex has, so they made a fight for it, half 
dressed as they were, and ill-armed, and in the 
scuffle five poor fellows lay down who will never 
get up again. Then — how, none could tell me — 
a torch was flung in the straw of a byre, and in 
an hour half Charnex was burnt.' 

‘ So ? And which way did the rogues go ?’ 

‘To the north. Seigneur.’ 

‘ And not more than a dozen of them ?’ 

‘A scant half-score, Seigneur. I counted 
the horse-tracks.’ 

‘ But they may have split their party ?’ 

‘ You called me a fool a while back. Seigneur, 
but I am not so great a fool as that. There 
were ten at the outside.’ 

‘ And how many have we in the castle ?’ 

‘ Five times that. Seigneur ; for since the 
young Sieur left you have doubled ’ 

‘ Ay, man, I know, I know. Ten followed at 
his heels, and the other dozen I flung out. I 
will have no traitors in Beaufoy. Saving 
thyself, Marmontel, there is not a soul in the 
castle who can say, “I knew Fran9ois de 
Beaufoy.” Send English Hugh to me, and 
then take a dozen fellows and do what thou 
canst for the rehousing of Charnex. As to the 


BEAUFOY’S TOKEN 


209 


dead, Charnex must see to their burying ; for 
since my Lord Bishop of Grandfrai has taken 
umbrage at me for checking the exactions of 
his lazy monks, I will ask no service of him or 
his.’ 

‘ But the thieves, Seigneur ?’ 

' Leave them to me,’ answered Beaufoy 
grimly. ‘ Do thou as thou art bid, and send 
me English Hugh. Yet, stay; whose band 
was this ? Since we hung Peter of the Red 
Hand and his six worthies I thought Beaufoy 
was free of rogues. What says Charnex ?’ 

‘ Charnex stammers. Seigneur, and says 
naught, or else that it was dark, and it as fair 
a night as heart could wish, and in May, too. 
The truth is, they are but peasants, and were 
panic-stricken. As for myself, I know no more 
than that they came from the north and went to 
the north. Best let me see to them. Seigneur.’ 

But Beaufoy shook his head. 

‘No, no ! Thou who art Beaufoy-born wilt 
deal more pitifully with the sorrows of Charnex 
than would another, and English Hugh can 
strike as hard as thou canst. Send him to me.’ 

Left alone, Beaufoy’s pace slackened, and 
his beard went down upon his breast. The 
fires of passion had died out, and the ashes left 
behind were very bitter. Marmontel had 

14 


210 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


spoken the truth and the sting of the words lay 
in that they were the truth. Beaufoy was in 
sore need of its young Sieur. How could the 
withered energies of three-score years and ten, 
and five years more, cope with the brawlings 
within and the aggressions from without ? To 
copy Marmontel’s phrase, If Beaufoy were to 
hold what Beaufoy held, it would only be by 
the grip of a vigorous manhood. In very 
sober truth Beaufoy had sore need of the young 
Sieur. 

Then, in face of his self-condemning, Beaufoy, 
as men will, pleaded justification. Was Beaufoy 
to be thrust aside in the affairs of Beaufoy ? 
The boy — to the old man five-and-thirty was 
no more than a boy’s age — the boy had taken 
too much upon him. There was no room at 
Beaufoy for two masters, and so he was best 
gone. Best gone ? Ay! but what of himself ? 
Was it not true that for Beaufoy’s sake it were 
better that he himself were gone, and so make 
room ? A good boy, for all his heat, a good 

boy ; and a good day for Beaufoy when 

And in the middle of his bitter thought English 
Hugh came clanking in at the door. 

A tall, clean-limbed, sinewy man was English 
Hugh, his eyes bold and hard, and his face 
smooth-shaven after the fashion of the times. 


BEAUFOY’S TOKEN 


21 1 


A resident these five years in France, he had 
left his country for reasons best known to 
himself and the laws ; a sturdy friend or a 
crafty foe, but all in the way of business. He 
held his life as so much capital, and so long as 
his gains were great, he cared little how high 
he speculated. 

As the Englishman halted at the doorway 
the old Count stopped in his walk, and coming 
to the table, leaned across it, his palms upon 
the corners. 

‘ Thou hast been, I think, one year at 
Beaufoy i*’ 

‘ One year. Seigneur.’ 

‘Thou art going to have thy first serious 
commission ; see that it prove thee worth thy 
hire. Thou hast heard of the outrage at 
Charnex ?’ 

‘ I have heard. Seigneur.’ 

‘ Good ! There are some half-score of the 
rogues, and they have nine hours’ start. But 
they have beasts and sheep to drive, and hard 
riding can do much. Do thou ride hard — ay, 
as if for thy life. Take twenty fellows with 
thee, and lose no time in the saddling.’ 

‘ And the thieves. Seigneur ?’ 

‘ The thieves, fellow ? There be five dead 
at Charnex, and two lives for one is no more 

14—2 


212 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


than Beaufoy justice. Do thy duty ; rope or 
steel is all one to me. Yet ’ — and De Beaufoy 
paused in deep thought, drawing down his 
shaggy brows across the caverns of his eyes — 
‘ wait, wait ; yes, that will do. Bring me as a 
token the right hand of the leader of the rogues. 
Now then, begone, and let Beaufoy ’s shame be 
wiped out ere nightfall.’ 

Later that day there came a visitor to the 
castle who met with a surly welcome, for all the 
old Count’s solitude. Between Beaufoy and 
the Church there had never been much love. 
Monseigneur the Bishop and my Lord the Count 
had ambitions in common, and the field was too 
narrow to allow both their full play without 
collision. Each claimed precedence : Beaufoy 
as Suzerain under the King, Philip of Grand- 
frai as the representative of his Holiness 
Innocent VIII. It was power temporal pitted 
against power spiritual, and, as neither would 
give way, they jostled. These strained relations 
had been still further stretched by an act of the 
old Seigneur’s, and Philip of Grandfrai waited 
without under the shadow of the oak in no 
temperate mood. Enter Beaufoy’s door he 
would not. 

A soldierly man was my Lord Bishop, with 
his sword braced high at his thigh — a soldierly 


BEAUFOY’S TOKEN 


213 


man, and with little about him from spurred 
heel to plumed hat to show the Churchman, 
save, perhaps, a certain chastened sobriety of 
attire. Six men-at-arms and two monks formed 
his escort, the latter barefooted and riding with 
their hoods flung back upon their shoulders. 

‘ Tell thy master, fellow,’ he said as he passed 
the guard at the outer gate lodge, ‘ that the 
Bishop of Grandfrai desires speech with him.’ 

Then he turned aside, and riding under the 
shadow of the oak, waited. 

‘ Then let him come and speak,’ answered 
Beaufoy curtly when one brought him the 
message. 

‘ Tell Raimond de Beaufoy,’ said Philip 
sternly, ‘ that though I am a man of peace, 
there are reasons well known to him why I, 
being who and what I am, will not cross his 
threshold.’ 

‘ A man of peace, and he with six steel 
bonnets at his back ! That is the sole peace 
Beaufoy may expect from one of his cloth.’ 
And the old Seigneur laughed mirthlessly. 
‘ Well, I will bate my dignity and go to the 
fellow, for the sake of being rid of him the 
sooner. Bide within, all of you, lest he think 
I go guarded. I care not a jot for him and all 
his. 


214 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


‘A courteous host goes to meet his guest,’ he 
went on as, bareheaded, he approached the 
prelate, and speaking with but little courtesy in 
his tone. ‘ Had I been as stiff as you. Mon- 
seigneur, there would have been little speech 
between us this day.’ 

‘ Leave compliments aside,’ answered Philip 
of Grandfrai, ‘ or if you have courtesy to spare, 
show some to my poor monks.’ 

‘ So,’ cried the old Seigneur angrily, ‘ that is 
the way the hawk flies By St. Francis, I 
thought as much ! If any showed your monks 
discourtesy. Lord Bishop, it was not with my 
goodwill. I bade Beaufoy’s folk keep Beaufoy’s 
goods for Beaufoy’s using, and that if a pack of 
lazy ne’er-do-works sought to lay hands upon 
them, to bid them begone — empty.’ 

‘ What 1’ ' cried the Bishop furiously, and 
forgetting the man of peace in the man of 
passion, ‘ you would deny the Church its 
rights, cut off its tithes and dues, and bid us 
starve ?* 

‘ No, Bishop, that I never said. Tithes 
and dues we will pay, seeing that all owe service 
to God and the King, and needs must that we 
be born and die ; but robbery under the guise 
of tithes and spoliation in the name of dues I 
and mine will not endure. And to that word 



« AS THE SEIGNEUR WAXED HOT, SO DID THE CHURCHMAN 

WAX COLD ” 





, • - 


> 





f 


♦ 


i 

\ 




BEAUFOY’S TOKEN 


215 

Raimond de Beaufoy sets his oath. Is that 
plain, Bishop ?’ 

‘ Seigneur, my monks sought but their rights ; 
and by the name of Him I serve, their rights 
they shall have. Spoliation and robbery there 
was none ; but by your vassals, Raimond de 
Beaufoy, there has been violence and well-nigh 
murder done, and I stand here in the face of 
God to claim justice on the evil-doers. Will 
you grant justice to me and my monks, Seigneur? 
Ay or nay ? For if you fail me I have my own 
methods, and by the Saints, they shall not fail ! 
Is that plain. Seigneur?’ 

‘Touch but one vassal of Beaufoy in wrath ’ 
— and in his passion the old Count shook his 
clenched hands in the Bishop’s face as he bent 
towards him from the saddle — ‘ touch but the 
hair of a Beaufoy’s man, and, by the Lord I I’ll 
ding your palace down about your ears, for all 
your priestliness. Again I say. Is that plain. 
Bishop ?’ 

As the Seigneur waxed hot so did the Church- 
man wax cold. Sitting back upon his beast, he 
met Beaufoy’s fierce looks with steady eyes, 

‘ Fie, fie !’ he said, with a calmness of con- 
tempt that was a fresh offence. ‘ Fie, fie ! so 
old a man and so ungoverned ! 'Tis a pitiful 
thing when age learns no sobriety of passion. 


2i6 the beaufoy romances 


Have you no fear, Seigneur de Beaufoy, of the 
justice of God, and you so near His bar ?’ 

‘ None, Lord Bishop, none.’ 

‘ Has His justice not already fallen on 
Beaufoy Where is the young Sieur ? Why 
is he a wanderer and a wastrel ? Was it hate 
or justice drove him from his birthplace ? 
Justice? Then he was at fault? I tell you, 
Raimond de Beaufoy, that God’s justice has 
already in part fallen, and the sins of the father 
are punished by the sins of the son. Have you 
still no fear of the justice of God ?’ 

‘ None, Lord Bishop, none. Let it fall on 
whom and when and where and how it may. 
Fear ? Nay, Bishop, I invoke it.’ 

‘ Then let it fall,’ said the other solemnly, 
and for a full minute he sat with his left hand 
raised above him, and looking sternly down 
into Beaufoy’s wrathful face. Then, with a 
twist of his hand, he turned his horse towards 
the gateway. ‘ Come,’ he said curtly, and rode 
off, leaving no word of farewell behind him. 

With slow steps the old Seigneur returned 
to the Justice-room, and sat himself down. 
This strife of tongues had not gone off as 
triumphantly as he, in his pride, had looked 
for ; and at the memory his dour, hard face 
was set in stern anger. 


BEAUFOY’S TOKEN 


217 


A chance shot of Philip of Grandfrai’s had 
gone home. Was it hate or justice that had 
driven out young Fran9ois from the home of 
his fathers ? Hate? Not of the boy ; no, no, 
for all his harshness Beaufoy loved the lad. 
Hate of his independence it might be, of that 
manhood in him which, pushing to the front, 
asserted itself in a fashion that angered the 
autocracy of three score and ten. He who for 
fifty years has been a king unto himself and all 
his world, is impatient of abdication, even when 
the need of it is roared into his ears by age 
and infirmity. Was it, then, after all, a kind 
of hate, a twist of a contemptible passion, that 
made the boy an outcast ? If that were so, 
truly he had paid for his sin, and paid for it 
twice over that very day. 

First, there was that affair of Charnex, a 
pitiful story, with its widows and orphans, its 
burnt and plundered homesteads — Francois 
might have saved all these. Then this feud 
with Philip of Grandfrai. A clear head and a 
calm tongue, with a timely politic concession — 
more words than acts — would have smoothed 
away Monseigneur’s grumbling. Doubtless 
these fellows at Mesnil had been over-rough. 
To strip a friar of his cassock and flog him 
through the village with a cart-rope was too 


21 8 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


loud a ‘ No’ to a demand for dues- It was the 
curse of a peasant that he had no discretion in 
his zeal. Well, both these were past praying 
for, and as for the first, English Hugh would 
wipe out the shame from the name of Beaufoy, 
and with a bloody cloth. That once done, he 
might have the boy home again, and thus fling 
‘ God’s justice ’ back into the teeth of Mon- 
seigneur. A pest on him and his taunts ! 

Night had fallen, and Beaufoy, having long 
supped, was back again in the dim Justice-room. 
More than any spot in the great house of his 
ancestors, this gaunt and gloomy room had a 
fascination for him ; for more than any spot it 
was the place where the men of his line had 
played their many parts. 

A lamp stood on the oak table, another was 
fixed in a sconce by the open door, and as the 
flames flickered in the many currents, the 
gloomy recesses and remote corners were alive 
with the legends of his race. Hitherto he had 
taken a stern pride in these grim tales of blood 
and violence, but to-night he was in a new 
mood, and the sound of hoarse voices without, 
blending with the ring of iron on the pavement, 
was a relief. English Hugh was back from his 
mission. 

‘ Well,’ he cried, leaning forward as the man- 


BEAUFOY’S TOKEN 


219 

at-arms appeared in the doorway and halted 
under the sconce, ‘ is it done ?’ 

‘ It is done, Seigneur, and well done.' 

‘ And the rogue, their leader ?’ 

For answer Hugh tapped the broad leathern 
pouch that hung at his side. 

‘ So, it is well 1 To thy tale, then, man, and 
be brief.’ 

‘ First, Seigneur, the losses. We rode out a 
score and come home eighteen.’ 

‘ These are a man’s chances, and we all set 
our lives on the cost,’ answered Beaufoy. 
‘ Who have paid forfeit i*’ 

‘ Roger Marne, Seigneur, and Jean le 
Gaucher.’ 

‘ Good men both. God rest them ! Well ?’ 

‘Next, the gains. Charnex has its beasts 
back, and, by St. George ! I never had glummer 
thanks. When I bid the women-folk sleep in 
peace, for their dead were avenged, they scowled 
and turned away into the dark. I’ll be sworn 
some wept, and one said ’ 

‘ What matters, man, what churls say ? 
Their wits are still numb ; go on with thy 
tale,’ 

‘ We took them unawares. Seigneur, and 
seeing they were but reivers, 1 thought it no 
shame to hold our vantage of surprise. So at 


220 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


the first rush a half went down ; but him who 
I have here, or at least his token ’ — and again 
Hugh tapped his pouch — ‘ he was a true son 
of a wolf, and fought — Saints, how he fought ! 
More than one of us carries his sign-manual, 
and it was he who put Roger on his back ; but 
the numbers did it. Seigneur, and we made an 
end of him at last. Two we hung, but the 
other eight had no breath left to choke. Then 
we rode back.’ 

‘ Then the chief rascal was no coward ?’ 

‘ No coward, and a fine swordsman. Seigneur. 
I would we had a dozen like him at Beaufoy.’ 

‘ Ha ! Beaufoy is well enough. Show me 
the carrion.’ 

Fumbling in his pouch, Hugh drew out the 
dismal fragment of humanity, and held it 
dangling in the light of the lamp as a man 
might hold some bird of a rare plumage. It 
had been severed two inches above the wrist ; 
its palm was sinewy and well formed, the 
fingers long and slender. 

A faint gleam of yellow light caught the 
Count’s eye as Hugh turned the hand this way 
and that. 

‘ A ring !’ he cried, laughing. ‘ So the rogfue 
was by way of being a gentleman.’ 

‘Faith, yes. Seigneur!’ and Hugh’s laugh 


BEAUFOY’S TOKEN 


221 


was louder than his master’s ; ‘ a ring, no less, 
crested and mottoed. The words are Greek 
to me, who am no scholar, but the crest is two 
daggers crossed.’ 

‘ What !’ and Beaufoy’s voice slew the 
laughter in the other’s mouth, so hoarse and 
loud was the cry. ‘ The ring, man ! Quick ! 
The ring ! God’s life, fellow, quick, I say !’ 

As he spoke Beaufoy stumbled to his feet, 
flinging the lamp crashing on the floor in his 
haste. 

‘ Let it be, fool ! The ring !’ 

For an instant he held it up so that the light 
from the sconce by the door fell full upon it, 
showing the motto of the Sieurs of his house — 

Etnnti ISonnefog Beaufog, 

Clasping the hand to his breast with his left 
arm, he turned upon the Englishman. 

‘ Go, man, in God’s name, lest I hang thee !’ 

And the last Hugh saw of the Seigneur was 
a figure bowed upon its knees at the darkened 
table, with its forehead resting on the token of 
Beaufoy’s justice. 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 

Measure eighteen miles as the road zigzags to 
the south-east, making from end to end fourteen 
miles of a crow-flight ; then bend to the right 
for half as far again, following the banks of the 
river, which there runs with but little curve ; 
turn once more to the right nineteen miles by 
the outskirts of the forest, then run a line north- 
east, roughly parallel with the river-bank, until 
you touch the starting-point, and you will 
enclose the domain over which Seigneur Ren6 
Fran 9 ois le Vaillant de Beaufoy, commonly 
called Francois de Beaufoy, claimed and exer- 
cised the rights of life and death, high justice 
and low justice ; he himself being pleader, 
judge, and jury, and against whose decisions 
there was no right of appeal. 

Not Charles on his throne was more supreme 
than the Seigneur de Beaufoy within these 
bounds. Nay, the Seigneur’s supremacy, if the 
more limited in extent, was the more absolute 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 223 


in prompt assertion, and therefore the more 
reverenced, since the vengeance of the lesser 
lord struck quicker and sharper than the more 
tardy justice of the King. 

Linked with this absolutism was a personal 
independence unknown at Court, and burdened 
only with the necessary alert watchfulness in- 
separable from the presence of such neighbours 
as those surrounding the Chateau Beaufoy. If 
the King in Paris was at odds in his day, now 
with Emperor, now with the Pope, so, to draw 
the parallel closer, was the Seigneur de Beaufoy 
in frequent handigrips, not alone with his 
fellow-lords, but also with the free-lances and 
organized bands of robbers which preyed upon 
the rich and harried the poor with all the in- 
discriminate impartiality of opportunity. 

Then, as now, the axiom that power has its 
obligations as well as its privileges was true in 
practice ; and so upon the Seigneur de Beaufoy 
there devolved the duty of enforcing protection 
within the two hundred and fifty or so square 
miles of his Suzerainty, 

Probably it was for the rough-and-ready 
enforcement of this, law and order that Louis le 
Jeune had first conferred on the founder of the 
line of Beaufoy his judicial rights, but, as is 
usually the case, the inch lengthened to an ell. 


224 the beaufoy romances 


and the power was stretched to cover (for pur- 
poses far other than protection) all who crossed 
or dwelt within the limits of his lands, provided 
they could be profitably and safely struck. 

To do the reigning Seigneur justice, the 
duty of safeguarding the peace of those who 
dwelt within his borders was not only recog- 
nised, but regularly performed. Woe to the 
free-lance who harried De Beaufoy’s preserves ! 
The Seigneur had a strong arm and a long 
reach, and the poorest serf of all who called him 
lord knew that, let his complaint be but well 
founded, no distance was too far for the sword- 
point of the Seigneur to strike the wrong-doer. 
Woe to the brigand who, trusting to the secret 
strengths of the forest belting the river-edge, 
sought to devour the weak of the Seigneur’s 
flock! No depth of the boscage could hold 
him long hidden, and not once nor twice, but 
many a time, the strange fruit left dangling 
from an oak limb had proclaimed the triumph 
of summary justice and the enforcement of a 
righteous vengeance. 

All such marauders might dwell upon his 
borders and welcome. Needs must that rogues 
dwell somewhere, and in certain cases their aid 
was welcome, but their harrying must be the 
harrying of the stranger, or, at worst, the noble 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 225 

lords the Seigneur’s good neighbours. Even 
then a judicious care was necessary, since to fall 
foul of an ally were almost as dangerous as to 
touch the Suzerainty itself ; but, to do him justice 
again, Francois de Beaufoy was not so much a 
man of peace as to be greatly beholden to the 
goodwill of his peers. 

Defence, attack, and reprisals require force 
of arms, and so, in common with every feudal 
castle of the time, Chdteau Beaufoy bristled 
with archers and spearmen, and was as jealously 
sentinelled as any frontier fort holding guard 
on the turbulent outskirts of a kingdom. 

For defence’ sake the Castle was perched on 
the crest of a hill which sloped away from it in 
all directions, thus dominating the approaches 
for three full bow-shots ; while, as for strength, 
he who beat down the outer rampart, or 
wrenched the iron gateway from its massive 
grooves, would still have turned back in despair 
from the solid resistance of the mighty walls of 
the Castle itself. 

Upon the slopes of the hill, but sufficiently 
far apart to afford no protection to an enemy, 
were dotted oaks and chestnuts, their number 
growing with the distance, one solitary specimen 
being alone permitted within the circuit of the 
outer walls. 

»5 


226 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


This was a decayed and blasted oak of 
immemorial age, whose once magnificent spread 
of luxuriant boughs had dwindled to two naked 
and lifeless limbs rising from a shell of hollowed 
trunk. Many and black and bloody enough 
were the legends twined about those ancient 
limbs, and when the chronicler sets them out in 
order, the history of the maimed oak will be 
found to antedate by many generations the 
Suzerainty of the line of Beaufoy. 

Where the shadow of the leafage had of old 
time fallen when the sun was at noon, the 
windows of the Seigneur’s Justice-hall looked 
out : a stern and gloomy room, as befitted the 
times and the grim secrets of the four walls. 

On the stone settle in that corner where the 
sun never struck. Dame Margaret, of four 
generations back, was strangled for reasons 
best known to her lord and herself. If scandal 
had a tongue, it never wagged it, since the 
Beaufoy of the day was a stern man and a 
powerful. That brown stain on the door-post, 
five feet and more from the floor, and a deeper 
tint than the age of the oak, had its own tale 
to tell, for a threatened division of the Suzer- 
ainty ended there — ended suddenly, as is clear 
from the broad bruise in the wood where the 
battle-axe glanced from Henri de Beaufoy ’s 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 227 

crushed headpiece. Lift the flag with the iron 
ring set under the level of its surface — lift it 
and look down. It will take your eyes three 
minutes to turn the blackness gray enough to 
give imagination shape ; and when it does you 
will let slip the ring and look no more. A 
gloomy room, this Justice-hall of the Seigneurs, 
and full of men’s wrath and passions. 

A proud man was Fran9ois de Beaufoy as 
he paced the hall that June day, his light sword 
making shrill music on the flags as he walked — 
proud of the many generations of his race ; 
proud of the broad acres of his Suzerainty, held 
unshorn through all the chances and changes 
of those dangerous years ; proud of the two 
young sturdy sciorts of his line, who, with those 
yet to come, would link on the glories of his 
house to as many generations in the future as 
there had been in the past ; proud of the fulness 
of the life and strength pulsing in his veins and 
filling his brain with schemes and strokes of 
policy which were to broaden out his power ; 
and, for the moment, proudest of all of the tale 
his man-at-arms was so full of the telling — a 
tale common enough, of evil wrought against 
some of the defenceless of his villeins, but none 
so common in those days in the swift and 
hearty vengeance which had followed. 

15—2 


228 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


‘ Montbriou burned ! The audacious hounds, 
to strike their game so near the Castle ! Burned, 
sacked, and seven of my poor peasants slain ! 
Would to the saints I had caught the rogues at 
the harrying : they would have roasted properly 
by the fires of Montbriou, and on their own 
swords for spits. Tell me of it again, Mar- 
montel ; I caught your story but carelessly at 
he first.’ 

Marmontel, Jackal to the Wolf, Squire to the 
Knight, Man-at-Arms to the Captain, soldier 
of fortune and faithful rogue, shifted his head- 
piece from his right arm to his left for greater 
freedom of gesture, and, nothing loth to tell a 
good tale to his own credit the second time, 
began : 

‘ By St. Anne, Seigneur, but it was rare 
work, that first brush with the rascals. The 
grass was none too soft, and because we were 
riding hotly they heard the hammer ’ 

Francois de Beaufoy paused in his walk. 

‘ See thou, Marmontel, a tale well told 
begins at the beginning, and not three parts 
to the end, where thine own glory cometh in. 
Go back on the slot, man, and begin afresh.’ 

‘ A shrewd stroke is more to my mind, 
Seigneur, than a long tale, but it runs some- 
thing after this fashion : 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 229 


* Half a score of us were coming at a walk 
round by the wooded spur above Montbriou, 
just where the knot of oaks shuts out the village 
from the bridle path, with, it may be, a mile or 
more of wood and pasture between. Riding at 
ease, we were with never a thought but of jest 
or gossip, when Hugues, who, since that dagger- 
stroke down by Rochelle hath reason to keep 
his eyes afield, reined back his beast two paces 
on my left and pointed where, across the top of 
the oaks, a cloud lifted betwixt us and the river 
in the distance. 

* It needed no man who had seen a sacked 
town to say “ Smoke!” So we wheeled to the 
left and went down the slope at a gallop. It 
was Montbriou ablaze, Seigneur, or, at least, 
a-smoulder, for the roofs were in and the flames 
out as we swept round by the oaks. 

‘ Five minutes, and we were there ; five more, 
and we were off to the west as fast as horseflesh 
could travel, and every man of us with the fires 
of Montbriou biting at his heart for the sake of 
the seven left dead in their doorways. How 
many there were ahead *twas hard to say. 
Some cried one thing and some another, and 
at every cry the numbers jumped up by the 
half-score. What would you have. Seigneur.^ 
The poor souls were but peasants, and dis- 


230 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


traught at that, by reason of their loss and the 
suddenness of the blow. 

‘ Sifting the tale out as we rode along, we 
judged there might be a score or more to face. 
It was at that that one of us half drew his rein, 
and said the odds were heavy against men and 
beasts sore pressed with hard riding, and 
that ’ 

‘ Ha !’ broke in the Sieur, dashing his hand 
against the table by which he stood, ‘ so there 
was a coward amongst you — a poltroon who 
weighed a nick in a whole skin against the 
honour of Beaufoy. By all the saints ’ 

‘ Hard words strike heavier than hard blows. 
Seigneur. At the worst, he only half drew his 
rein, and at the best German Hans did his 
work like a man. May God deal by his soul 
more gently than he himself dealt by his own 
body when the brunt came. He’s dead, and 
Heaven rest him ! As for the honour of 
Beaufoy, time enough to cry out when the 
shadow touches it. 

‘ Thence on we galloped the harder, and 
inside of forty minutes saw the rogues just 
getting to horse again in a broad glade with 
thin shelter at our side and a deep thicket 
beyond. But that they were encumbered with 
the cattle and the spoils of Montbriou, we had 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 231 


never come within arm’s-length of them ; and 
now that they heard the hammer of our hoofs 
on the short turf, they showed no manner of 
willingness to throw aside their gains. 

‘ Ah, Seigneur !’ — and Marmontel stopped to 
wet his lips, grown dry in the eagerness of his 
tale — ‘ ah. Seigneur ! but for these seven 
stretched dead at Montbriou, it had been worth 
the cost of the burning and harrying to have 
the dash and fury of that first brush. Ten to 
twenty are none too many and none too few. 
You can see your men, every one, and there is 
nought to confuse. In through the trees we 
swept, the loose timber splitting us up so that 
none in the glade beyond might know how 
exactly we would break upon them. Into the 
shadow, between the stems like ghosts, and out 
into the sunlight and upon them with a roar in 
our throats that might have stirred the seven 
of Montbriou. Sharp work and short, Seigneur, 
with scant time to give an eye as to who struck 
this stroke and who that — scant time, in truth, 
for anything but the man in front, and the next 
who might come after him as he went down. 
Ten minutes, perhaps, all told, but it was the 
living of a lifetime. By St. Anne ! but Beaufoy 
has no need to blush for its men. How many 
broke into cover behind I know not ; not many 


232 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


I trow, and few unhurt, but I can take an oath 
to seventeen who go northward no more. And 
we ? Oh, ay ; there’s no omelet without the 
breaking of eggs. German Hans has a hole in 
his throat, over-big to hold in his soul ; Hugues, 
Bassomme, and Grosset^te are in no better 
case. The Spaniard — his name was ever too 
much for my tongue — and Marcel are good for 
naught but Father Clement’s prayers, and I 
doubt not he has smoothed their journey ere 
this. It will be a long one, and over by night- 
fall, if I know aught of sword-thrusts. 

‘ That makes six, Seigneur ; the other four 
have more need of the leech than the Church ; 
and I, to my shame, am the only sound man 
out of nigh three dozen, all told.’ 

Fran9ois de Beaufoy drew a long breath as 
the tale ended. 

‘ I would give five years of my life for those 
ten minutes, Marmontel, and I would lay a 
wager, my friend, that your sword is not as 
scatheless as your body. No need for shame 
at a skin held sound by a quick eye, good steel, 
and a better address.’ 

For answer Marmontel drew out his sword, 
broken in two within ten inches of the hilt. 

‘ It went at the third man. Seigneur, and him 
I finished with my poniard. As for five years. 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 233 


hold what you’ve got, say I. Hans and the 
rest, I doubt not, would have made the same 
barter three hours ago.’ 

‘Tut, man!’ answered De Beaufoy, ‘what 
wouldst thou have ? They did their duty, and 
died in the doing of it. Let us do ours in our 
day, and pay the same cost an need be. Let’s 
look at that hilt of thine. Come now, Mar- 
montel, what boon for this day’s work ? It was 
a man’§ blow that notched that gap ; had it 
caught thee unawares, it had shorn thee to the 
breast-bone. What boon for upholding the 
honour of Beaufoy ? Nay, never stammer like 
that, man, and see that thou rankest not my 
honour too low.’ 

Marmontel laid down his headpiece on the 
oaken table, and, leaning both hands on the 
edge, bent forward. 

‘ A word’s a word. Seigneur ; and — and if 
there’s aught that’s due me, though I did no 
more than the rest, why — why ’ 

‘ Why,’ broke in De Beaufoy — ‘ why — 
why, dost thou want my little Rende to 
wife, and she three come the last day of next 
month ?’ 

‘ Nay, my lord ; but there’s a wench in it for 
all that, and if the Seigneur will but shut his 
eyes and ears, the debt’s paid.’ 


234 the beaufoy romances 


‘A wench — thou ?’ cried De Beaufoy. ‘What 
gnat in the brain is this ?’ 

‘ Nay, no gnat, but a wench, though one may 
buzz as fast as the other,’ answered Marmontel 
sourly, since forty takes ill the bantering which 
but flatters twenty, ‘ and a word passed is still 
a word, e’en though it be not for gold crowns.’ 

‘ Ay ; is the bolt so near the heart as that ? 
Well, I have done with jesting ; word or no 
word. I’ll have no harrying of the lambs of my 
flock — no, not even for thee. For how, tell me, 
is law to be upheld if I wink at evil to a maid 
to please your whim ?’ 

‘ Now, by St. Anne,’ answered the other, 
‘ who spoke of evil ? Would I sully the blood 
of my heart, Seigneur ? Why, I would not so 
much as seek to look the wench in the face but 
by grace of Father Clement.’ 

De Beaufoy stamped his foot. 

‘ Then, take her, man — take her. What’s 
the pother?’ 

‘Why,’ said Marmontel shamefacedly, ‘no 
pother, but a matter of taste, and that she will 
have none of me.’ 

‘ Oh, ho ! Sits the bird on that tree Why, 
what a dust about nothing ! Whose wench is 
she ? And, my word for it, but I’ll see to the rest.’ 

Marmontel shook his head. 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 235 


‘ Nay, had that been all it had been soon 
settled, but Gustave Breigne will have two 
words to say to the bargain.’ 

‘ Ha ! Breigne, Breigne — who ? — ay, I have 
him now. Where got such a lout a wench to 
lime a man like thee ? But that’s by the way, 
since the liming of a man comes not by logic. 
See you, man, I owe this fellow a grudge, and 
to pay you a debt and strike him with the same 
stroke is shrewd policy. You mean well by 
the wench Ay, then bid Father Clement 
bide within this afternoon ; he will have work 
enough on hand with those seven of Montbriou 
and our own six. I doubt not the grip that 
holds Hugues in keeping will not slacken over- 
easily. To get thirteen of Beaufoy out of 
purgatory is no light travail. Take six stout 
fellows, and you and I and they will ride a- 
wooing presently, and, my word for it, Mar- 
montel. Father Clement will have an unwonted 
labour ere nightfall. 

Four leagues to the west of Chiteau Beaufoy 
the forest grows thick enough to harbour every 
wild beast in the circuit of life from man to 
wolf. None but a woodman, bred to the fullest 
in forest lore, could safely penetrate its recesses, 
so vast was its extent and so perplexing its 
deadly similarity mile by mile. 


236 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


Such a woodman was Gustave Breigne, the 
charcoal-burner, whose one-roomed, turf-roofed 
hut lay a furlong deep in the forest. More 
than twenty years before he had come from 
none knew where, and had lived alone a sullen, 
solitary life. Then came a three months’ 
interval, during which there drifted no white 
smoke from his furnace-pits, and when at last 
the fires were once more alight, Gustave 
Breigne was no longer alone, but had to wife a 
dark-faced woman from the South. Of her no 
man knew aught more than of him, and no man 
sought to know, for Gustave Breigne had 
earned for himself an evil reputation, over 
which his neighbours, remote enough in such a 
country, muttered and looked askance. 

It was not so much because of the Seigneur’s 
deer, slaughtered on a moonlight night, nor 
for the whisper of trafficking with the bandits 
who held the forest as a lurking-place, nor even 
for the winter night’s gossip of belated travellers 
who never saw the morning sun, but of whom 
Gustave Breigne knew more than he said : 
stories enough, and lies for the most part. But 
there were those who told strange tales of 
shadows seen at night in the shifting light of 
the furnace-mouth when the smoke was thin 
and blue and smelt of evil — shadows that 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 237 


shivered and danced, wavering in shape from 
man to beast and beast to devil, with Gustave 
Breigne himself moving among them larger 
than human. The deer, they were well enough ; 
the bandits might be friends at a pinch, and to 
keep on their smooth side was wise ; and as for 
the hints of murder, why, Beaufoy himself had 
a name that some might cavil at, and there 
were times with every honest man when it was 
his life or another’s ; but witches and devils, 
hell’s familiars and the like, that touched a 
man’s soul ; and so, for the sake of the grossest 
lie of them all, the Breignes were cut apart. 

For three years there came to their cabin 
but two changes — the common alternations of 
life and death ; a girl child was born to them, 
then, two years later, the household of three 
became two once more. The mother died. 
Had he so willed it, Gustave might at that 
time have entered into closer relationship with 
those about him, since death and sorrow break 
down more barriers than life and gladness. 
But it was now his turn to repel advances, and 
he would none of their kindliness. Thence- 
forward he and the little Marthe were out- 
casts. 

That had been fifteen years before, and for 
those fifteen years, while each went a separate 


238 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


way, each had been all in all the one to the 
other. Untaught, unguided, Marthe had grown 
up in the woods with as free a life as any dryad 
of olden times. Fearless and untiring, she left 
nothing unexplored in her world of thickets, 
and it was while on one of her solitary excur- 
sions by the outskirts of the forest that she had 
been first seen by Marmontel. 

What set the war-hardened veteran ablaze 
was a mystery to himself, since, beyond her 
supple strength of limb and that grace of 
carriage which was the gift of the life she led, 
there was but little to attract one so seasoned 
by experience. But ablaze he was from the 
first hour he saw her watching him through the 
trailing boughs of a broken oak. Many a time 
thereafter he had business that way, cursing 
himself in his heart for a fool the while. Thrice 
he spoke to her, and once he sought to touch 
her. Each time she had answered him cour- 
teously enough, but with short replies. The 
further advance’ had less success, for, as he 
leant from his saddle, her suspicions were on 
the moment alert, and she fled zigzag to the 
trees more swiftly than, in such a place, his 
horse could follow. Then — and his ears ever 
after tingled when he thought of it — when at a 
safe distance, she turned, and with clear voice 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 239 


and clearer language, cursed him roundly for 
a foul beast. 

That had been three days before, and Mar- 
montel, while his ears burned, loved her none 
the less for the outburst, but rather more. 

As the fifteen years passed, Gustave had 
gloomed and soured, but, until a certain thing 
happened, his moroseness was catholic and 
of equal application ; thereafter, while losing 
none of its catholicity, it had special bitter- 
ness against the Chateau Beaufoy and all 
therein. 

That which put edge upon his hate was 
nothing uncommon in those days, and inside of 
three months was forgotten by all save father 
and daughter, until at last the sight of Marthe 
in the woods brought back the three-years-old 
tale to Marmontel, who cursed his ill-luck that 
in this case of all others the Seigneur should 
have seen fit to take such a vengeance. 

Gustave Breigne had killed one too many of 
the Beaufoy deer ; had been caught in the very 
act of driving home the knife in the coup de 
grdce, and six hours later had had his left hand 
hacked off at the wrist with his own blade and 
the severed limb nailed upon his own lintel. 
The trial is a short one where all is accusation 
and nothing defence, and Frangois de Beaufoy 


240 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


had taken credit for his mercy in not lopping 
the right hand rather than the left. 

If at the time Gustave Breigne said but little, 
it was because he knew that a silent tongue 
keeps a sound head, but he hated Chiteau 
Beaufoy and all within it none the less bitterly 
for his silence. In the three years all this had 
been forgotten until Marmontel named the 
woodman to the Seigneur, then, as is the 
fashion of human nature when the suffering is 
another’s, the crime came back as clear as noon, 
while the expiation was lost out of sight. 

Down the hill from the turret-gate of the 
Castle the wooers rode at leisure, the Seigneur 
first, Marmontel half a length behind to the 
left, and the six stout men-at-arms in double file 
ten paces in the rear. Clear of the courtyard, 
Francois de Beaufoy halted on the broad belt 
of turf which swept in a circle round the 
Chateau and threw his hand up into the air, 

‘ By all the saints, Marmontel, but what a 
world of good there is in life I I vow I would 
not change Beaufoy for the Empire itself!’ 

‘Ay,’ the other answered bluntly, for his 
mind was full of a difficulty to come, ‘ to the 
Suzerain it’s well enough, but for the maimed 
man yonder 

Then he stopped, and nodded westward. 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 241 


‘The hawk to his nest, and such dogs to 
their cover,’ said De Beaufoy sternly ; ‘ wouldst 
have me darken my sunshine for a rogue’s self- 
cast shadows, that you link me with that thief? 
A man who is a fool at two-score is the worst 
fool on God’s earth, since he has lived long 
enough to be wise, and not so long as to be 
dotard. Has the girl bewitched thee that thou 
talkest in such a fashion ? Nay, man, look and 
judge it for itself. See the slope, and the rise, 
and the slope beyond, with the blue where the 
forest is hidden. See the sunshine and the 
shadow and the chase of cloud, and there, on 
that side, the glint of the river. See the dapple 
of the trees in the wind, hear the lowing of the 
cattle, the murmur of life from beyond yonder 
hill-shoulder.’ 

‘ Ay,’ broke in Marmontel grimly ; ‘ it’s the 
women wailing their dead at Montbriou. Well 
enough for the Seigneur, I say again, but 
what of the mishandled peasants down the 
way ?’ 

De Beaufoy beat his clenched fist against his 
thigh. 

‘Plague take your croaking! You poison 
the heart of June. Life or death is the chance 
of us all.’ 

‘Nay,’ persisted the other, ‘ I but said that 

16 


242 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


it was better for the Seigneur than for the 
villein.’ 

De Beaufoy gathered up his reins and 
rode on. 

‘ Have done, I say ; had I not passed my 
word to thee, thou mightest go hang for the 
wench.’ 

Ten minutes later he halted. Across the 
shoulder of the hill there came from the left, 
sharper and clearer, the outcry of lamenta- 
tion. Before, and with a trend to the right, 
dw'elt Gustave Breigne. 

‘ To Montbriou first,’ he said, and, with a 
jerk of the bridle, turned across the hill. 

The village, a handful of huts drawn closely 
together, but without any system of arrange- 
ment, lay on the southern slope of the hill, set 
in small breadths of half-grown wheat. From 
the wreck of some of the collapsed houses a 
sluggish smoke still rose, whilst others, the least 
ruined, were already in process of restoration. 

Busy as were the workers, it was not on them 
that the interest centred as the troop rode 
slowly down the slope, but rather on a group 
clustered together at the upper end of the village, 
a group of the women and the children girdled 
round the seven who that day had died for the 
homes of Montbriou. 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 243 


They lay, not as they had fallen, but stretched 
out in rigid lines of death, shoulder to shoulder 
and hand to hand, and at the head knelt Father 
Clement, the one silent mourner of all the 
living. 

As the Seigneur drew near, the insistent 
lamentation died into sobs, and the circle of 
the women parted so that he rode onward, up 
to the very feet of the dead, and there drew 
rein. 

While he paused, looking silently down on 
the face of death, a woman, gaunt with labour 
and age, thrust her way to his stirrup- iron, and 
brushing aside traditional terror and respect in 
the despair of loss, seized his rein. 

‘ Husband and son in the one hour. Seigneur — 
husband and son ! Hush your whimpering 
there, that the Seigneur may hear my men 
crying out for vengeance. It’s an ill day when 
the dead cry and none heed. Ha ! do you 
hear ? Sorrow for sorrow ! Life for life ! 
Blood for blood !’ and the other hand was 
reached out and shook De Beaufoy by the 
arm. 

Except in his passions, or when his pride 
was touched, De Beaufoy was ever a kindly 
man, else not even the dead had been her 
surety for such boldness. As it was : 

16 — 2 


244 the beaufoy romances 


‘ Ay, mother,’ he said, ‘ vengeance enough 
and sorrow enough, but not by me. Ask Mar- 
montel there.’ 

Her arm dropped, and she shifted her gaze 
to the man-at-arms. Marmontel answered her 
look grimly enough. 

‘Blow for blow,’ he said, ‘and blood for 
blood, though it cost six more in the avenging.' 

The woman drew in her breath with a shrill 
scream, and leaving the Seigneur, she turned 
to Marmontel, stroking and fawning upon him 
with her hands. 

‘ Tell me,’ she said in a hoarse whisper, as if 
her voice had sunk deep down in her throat — 
‘ all ? Are all dead .i*’ 

‘ Sixteen for seven is good count,’ answered 
Marmontel ; ‘ and if six I wot of could speak, 
they would say the score was more than even.’ 

‘ Sixteen, sixteen !’ and she broke into a halt- 
ing laugh, only to check herself suddenly. 

‘ Only sixteen ! Then what of the other five ? 
Had no man of ye all a thrust for them ?’ Then 
again her mood changed. ‘ Pray God ye slew 
them who laid these two there. Blood for 
blood ! Life for life !’ and her voice ran into 
a scream. ‘ The blessing of the weak, who 
cannot strike for themselves, be upon thee. 
The saints give thee thy heart’s desire.’ 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 245 


De Beaufoy laughed. Dead peasants were 
over-common for a waste either of time or of 
sensitive tenderness. 

‘ Right, mother,’ he said. ‘ Thy shaft goes 
home. See him redden under the bronze. 
Marmontel is out a-wooing to-day, and, on the 
faith of a De Beaufoy, his heart’s desire is his. 
Hark you. Father Clement. In the midst of 
death we are in life, and the Church will be 
sorely needed ere sundown. See that you fail 
not at the Castle. For these — God rest them, 
and send us all as good an ending ; De Beaufoy 
asks no better. As for thee, mother, Beaufoy 
forgets not Montbriou. My dame will see to 
that. The day wears : spurs, my men, and 
sharply !’ 

Thencefoward it was brisker work, and in 
spite of Marmontel’s gloom and the shadow of 
death from the stricken village, their spirits 
rose with the heat of the gallop and the whistle 
of the wind in their ears. 

Gustave Breigne’s charcoal-pits were in full 
blast that day, rolling out their dense smoke in 
huge clouds ; and Gustave Breigne himself, 
having dined, was at rest by the door of his hut. 

For all that his shoulders were bowed by 
labour, the man’s life was as vigorous within 
him as when, that score of years before, he had 


246 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


brought Martha’s mother home to the shadows 
of Beaufoy woods. 

Since the day death had also come beneath 
the shadows Gustave Breigne had had but two 
passions — Marthe and his toil. These, until 
of late, had filled his existence ; but now there 
was added a third, no less absorbing — his hatred 
of Chateau Beaufoy. 

The disability of his maiming had been over- 
come in a rough fashion by the strapping on to 
the stump of the forearm a two-pronged V- 
shaped iron, one of the prongs being bent into 
a hook. With this he steadied the handle of 
his axe, and, by help of a ring fixed near the 
end of the haft, he even came in time to assist 
the strength of his right arm. The unbent 
prong served the purpose of a rude fork. 

With such a reminder ever before his eyes 
Gustave Breigne was not likely easily to forgive. 
Marmontel, then, was amply justified in his 
belief that the charcoal-burner would have no 
dealings with Chiteau Beaufoy, and as the man- 
at-arms rode through the thickening glades on 
the outskirts of the forest his own forebodings 
pressed in upon him heavier than ever. 

At length out of the very bitterness of his 
heart he plucked up courage and spoke : 

‘ 'Tis a fool’s errand. Seigneur, and 1 the fool 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 247 


to hunt a slip of a girl, and of such a bitter 
stock. Evil will come of it, and no wench in 
all Angoul^me, nay, in broad France itself, is 
worth an honest man’s blood. I was hot 
enough this morning and prinked up with 
pride when I craved the boon. Now I am 
chill, and the boon is none so great.’ 

But the sight of the white smoke drifting 
through the tree-stems had, in some unreason- 
ing fashion, stirred the Seigneur’s gall. 

‘ Whose blood ? Thine or Gustave Breigne’s ? 
A pretty talk of honest men, be it one or the 
other. Is your Seigneur a fool-puppet to ride 
on a barren errand ? By the faith of Beaufoy, 
you wed the maid this night, will she, nill she, 
or you hang on the Castle oak. Am I to be 
flouted by your tremors at a maimed man ? 
Or is it the flutter of a homespun petticoat that 
makes you quake ? I tell you, not all the devils 
that ever danced at Gustave Breigne’s fires shall 
stay my will. Ah, the thing falls out as it should, 
for all thy croaking ! See !’ 

They were now hard upon Breigne’s hut ; 
the glade, cleared by his woodcraft, alone lying 
between, and midway across the open space 
was Mar the, seated upon the grass in the sun- 
shine. 

‘You six round between the wench and the 


248 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


hut : a scared doe ever runs to cover. Now, 
Marmontel, do thy devoirs, and if the girl cry 
out, why, thou hast stopped a woman’s mouth 
ere this, and knowest the trick of it, I’ll wager.’ 

At the noise of the trampling Gustave 
Breigne had risen, and as the horsemen broke 
cover he stood by the door of the hut with his 
hand to his brow looking out across the glade. 

Thenceforward what passed passed in a flash. 
There was the dash of the men-at-arms, three 
on this side, three on that, and meeting beyond 
the girl. Marmontel’s rush to the centre of the 
glade, an easy fling from the saddle, a none so 
easy clamber back with Marthe fighting in his 
grasp like a wolf-cub, and Fran9ois de Beaufoy 
advancing slowly into the open. 

With a cry that rang across the glade and a 
broad furlong beyond, Gustave Breigne, as he 
guessed their purpose, had leaped towards his 
daughter, only to meet the six horsemen face 
to face and stagger back. The line of naked 
steel was beyond attack. An instant he stood 
glaring at them, his one hand outstretched and 
gripping at the air, then : 

‘ Hell’s devils burn Beaufoy !’ he howled, and 
turning, fled back to the hut. 

As he turned the Seigneur, twenty yards out 
in the sunshine, broke into a laugh. 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 249 


‘ Eh ! Gustave Breigne,’ he said, ‘ ’tis easier 
to kill a deer than save a doe.’ 

With the laugh stinging him like a whipstroke, 
Gustave Breigne darted through the door of 
his hut, and from within came the rattle and 
crash as of light dry rods flung this way and 
that in the hot search of passionate haste. 
When he reappeared, it was with a stout bow 
and three arrows in his grip. 

Short as had been his disappearance, it had 
been long enough to change the setting of the 
scene in the clearing. The eight horsemen 
had drawn together at the farther side, and in 
the midst was Marmontel with Marthe, still 
fighting desperately, held fast in his arms. 

Gustave Breigne seized the arrows in his 
teeth, and, straining the bow with knee and 
hook, strung it. Three seconds notched an 
arrow in the string, two more braced the bow 
against the iron fork, and a shaft sang across 
the glade — harmless. A second followed, and 
as it splintered on Marmontel’s headpiece, 
Fran9ois de Beaufoy reined in his horse with 
an angry jerk, and turned, leaning back in his 
saddle. 

‘ This hound is overbold,’ he cried, ‘ and needs 
a lesson. Back there, four of you, and ’ 

While he spoke Gustave Breigne had notched 


250 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


his third shaft, and full in the midst of the 
command the arrow, drawn to the head, was 
loosed. With a gasp the Seigneur flung his 
hands into the air, and tumbling over his 
horse’s flank, fell in a heap on the grass. The 
arrow had struck him full in the breast, and 
the fall snapped it across three inches from the 
ribs. 

An instant’s silence followed, then Marmontel, 
with that instinct which makes an enemy the 
first thought of the soldier, cried : 

‘ Seize yonder fellow ! Your lives for his ; he 
has stricken the Seigneur !’ and flinging Marthe 
from him as a thing no longer of account, he 
leaped to the ground. 

Small thought had Gustave Breigne of 
escape. As he stood when the arrow left the 
bow, so he stood, dumb and staring, when 
ten seconds later the troopers swooped upon 
him. 

As Marmontel lifted the fallen man, Fran9ois 
de Beaufoy opened his eyes. 

‘ Take me home,’ he said under his breath — 
‘ home, and quickly, for this is death.’ 

‘ A hard hit, truly. Seigneur, for all there is 
so little blood. God curse the hand ’ 

‘Hal’ said De Beaufoy louder and hoarser, 
‘ Gustave Breigne i*’ 



THE ARROW, DRAWN TO THE HEAD, WAS LOOSED.” 




HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 251 


Marmontel looked across the glade, answer- 
ing the thought rather than the words. 

‘ Shall we hang the dog to his lintel ? Ay, 
and the wench by him ?’ 

But the Seigneur shook his head. 

* That can wait,’ he said. ‘ Home first, for 
I am on fire here,’ and he touched his breast. 

It was but a slow procession that three hours 
later climbed the hill to the Castle gate, and 
Fran9ois de Beaufoy was more corpse than 
living man when at last they laid him down 
in that broad hall shadowed by the blasted 
oak. Against the north wall of the hall, 
midway between the door and the farther end, 
was a stout settle, and there they stretched 
the man who that morning had trod the flags 
with so proud a step. 

Cutting loose the broidered doublet and jerkin, 
the leech had need of but scant skill in wounds 
to know that the Seigneur of Beaufoy held a 
weak grip on his Suzerainty. The splintered 
shaft still remained where it had struck, and 
none dared touch it, since its plucking out meant 
the leaping after of Fran9ois de Beaufoy ’s 
life. 

The wounded man, looking up from his stone 
settle, read in the bent face the truth he had 
himself foretold ; and knowing the value of the 


252 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


grains of time still remaining, frittered away 
no strength with useless questions or many 
words. 

‘ Catherine ?’ 

‘ My lady is with the dead at Montbriou. 
She has been sent for in all haste.’ 

‘Good ! The dead here will have a claim 
too. Gustave Breigne ?’ 

‘ Under close guard in the watch-tower.’ 

‘Your lives for his I’ and a light blazed up in 
the eyes an instant, then died out, and the lids 
closed over. 

Noiselessly Father Clement stole in from the 
outer hall, and monk and leech stood by the 
dying man side by side, watching silently. 

Suddenly, as by an effort of will, the eyes 
opened, but the brows were drawn down, and 
the face set and stern, for all its ghastly pallor. 

‘ How long i*’ 

Beyond the passing of a wet cloth softly 
across the forehead and lips, the leech made no 
answer. 

‘ How long ?’ said the hoarse voice again, 
hoarser and more insistent. ‘ One hour or two ? 
God’s curse, man, speak out I Have I leisure 
for such nice mummery of respect ? One hour 
or two ?’ The leech shook his head, but made 
no direct answer. ‘ Not one hour .>* Then get 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 253 


all men from me for one-fourth my lifetime, that 
I may think.' 

The two drew back hesitatingly, then said 
Father Clement : 

‘ Nay, Seigneur, surely there is much to be 
done, and the time is short.’ 

‘ Ay,’ answered De Beaufoy, ‘ surely there 
is much to be done, and the time is short. 
The more reason for few words and a quick 
obedience. Confession presently, Father; there 
is something, as I think, which must come 
first.’ 

Then he closed his eyes, and at an impera- 
tive motion of his hand the two withdrew, the 
priest whispering as he went : 

‘ ’Tis some need of reparation that lies heavy 
on his soul ; some repentance that is a work as 
well as a sorrow. Pray God he make haste, 
for the end is not far off.’ 

‘ If he but cry out,’ answered the other, ‘ he 
is dead.’ 

As the sound of the shuffling feet died away, 
De Beaufoy looked out once more on his hall 
of justice, and a great bitterness grewin his heart. 
There was the sunshine slanting in through the 
narrow windows ; there beyond, the beauty of 
the sky cut by the gray line of the outer wall, 
the bustle, the stir, the expansion of life were 


254 the beaufoy romances 


all at work, even as when he was in his strength ; 
and now the mill of life still ground on, though 
he lay with death gripping at his heart. His 
glory of power was cankered, his greatness but 
a crushed potsherd ; and at the thought of the 
contrast between the then and the now he 
ground his teeth and groaned a curse under his 
breath. 

Slowly his eyes passed round the hall, noting 
its massive strength. Ay, that was built to last, 
while he had but an hour betwixt him and clay, 
and after him came Raoul. At the thought of 
the children his face softened, and, as if the 
thought had called them, there came on the 
instant the pattering of their feet on the flags. 

Solemn-eyed and dimly conscious of mis- 
fortune, the two, Raoul and Ren^e, stood a 
moment hand in hand by the doorway ; then 
walked slowly up the hall, slowly, slowly, 
staring with uncomprehending curiosity at this 
father of theirs in his new mood of unwonted 
stillness. The very silence made them afraid, 
and they paused, shrinking back, their hands 
clasping one another the tighter. 

Suddenly Raoul shook himself clear. 

‘ See, Ren^e,’ he cried, ‘ father’s got some- 
thing.’ And running forward, he put out his 
hand to grip the broken arrow in Fran9ois de 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 255 


Beaufoy’s naked breast. Left alone with her 
fears, Ren6e broke into a dolorous wail, and at 
the cry Raoul turned back. ‘ Come, Rende,’ he 
said, ‘father’s sleepy,’ and, again hand in hand, 
they stole away, and De Beaufoy had seen 
the last of his race. 

Once again the bitterness of death passed 
upon the stricken man. His day was done. 
What now would come to Beaufoy in those 
turbulent times, and the Seigneur a feeble 
child Since the days of the Suzerainty men 
had led men. Strong hands had held what 
strong hands had handed down to them, and cool 
brains had plotted for its enlargement. What 
was that text Father Clement had preached 
from five Sundays past ? ‘Woe to thee, O 
land, when thy king is a child.’ Beaufoy would 
be rent in pieces ; robber hordes upon this side, 
free-lances upon that, and crafty, unscrupulous 
neighbours upon both this and that. The 
patient building up of generations stricken 
down by a bolt’s blow ! Ha ! that he could at 
least avenge ! And his eyes rolled round in 
their sockets seeking for the shadow of the 
maimed oak. 

It was ominous of the end that Father 
Clement returned alone : the leech had no 
further part in the tragedy ; but as the priest 


256 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


stooped to kneel by the settle-head, Fran9oisde 
Beaufoy stopped him with a gesture. 

‘ Time enough for that,’ he said. ‘ Justice 
for life, the Church for death. Send me 
Marmontel ; he and T have somewhat to do.’ 

Father Clement drew back. 

‘ Nay, Seigneur, Heaven’s mercy first, and 
then earth’s justice.* 

‘ Ay, that’s well enough ; but maybe the 
justice will need the mercy, so this time let the 
first come second. Send me MarmonteL’ 

‘Seigneur, I pray you.’ 

Beaufoy half turned on the settle. 

‘ Priest, would you have me die unconfessed ? 
Send me Marmontel.’ 

‘ But ’ 

‘But no buts. Have I breath for wrang- 
ling ? Send me Marmontel ; when he and I 
and Gustave Breigne are done the one with 

the other, then In God’s name hasten, 

man, for the life runs low in me,’ 

Seeing that it was useless to urge him further. 
Father Clement went in haste in search of the 
man-at-arms, and speedily returned with him, 
and then took again his place by the settle. 

Tough -fibred though he was, the blow which 
struck De Beaufoy had sorely wounded Mar- 
montel. Death was common enough, and that 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 257 


a man should die for his Seigneur was nothing 
out of the course of nature ; but that the 
Seigneur should lie there stricken to the death 
in his quarrel, and for such a shred of value as 
a whimsy wench, hit Marmontel hard. 

The ruddy bronze of his cheeks had faded 
into an ashy gray, and the nerve that had borne 
him unmoved over a dozen stricken fields had 
broken down, so that he shook and trembled 
and went cold like a girl at her first sight of 
blood. 

Not even the chill creeping so relentlessly 
up from his feet nor the growing torment of 
fire in his breast, had brought home to De 
Beaufoy the nearness of the end as did the 
white face of Marmontel. How near and how 
terrible a thing this death must be, if it could 
thus shatter so hardened a nature ! Back into 
his heart surged the bitterness of loss, and if 
Gustave Breigne’s life had ever stood a chance 
of safety, Marmontel’s white face killed that 
chance at once and for ever. Very feebly the 
Seigneur beckoned with outstretched fingers. 
The slightest gesture, no more, for with such a 
truth staring at him through Marmontel’s eyes, 
it behoved him to conserve his strength. 

‘ Nearer,’ he whispered, ‘nearer, nearer still. 
Thine ear to my mouth. This is betwixt us 


258 THE BEAUFOY ROMANCES 


twain, and is nought of the Church’s — at least 
as yet. Hang me Gustave Breigne to Beaufoy’s 
oak.’ Then seeing, perhaps, a question in the 
other’s face, he broke out : ‘ God’s life, man, 
my word’s my word, though it be but a 
whisper !’ 

Marmontel raised his head as if to speak, but 
the Seigneur stopped him. 

‘ Hark you ! If the leech be right, I have 
thirty minutes in which to hang Gustave 
Breigne and make my peace with God. So 
hasten thou.’ 

Without a word Marmontel got him out of 
the Justice-hall, and with the silence following 
the ring of his spurs on the flags Beaufoy 
twisted himself round, the better to see the 
outline of the oak against the clear olive of the 
failing twilight. His wolfish look stung the 
priest into fresh action. Leaving the settle- 
foot, he flung himself on his knees beside the 
dying man. 

‘ Bethink you. Seigneur, at such a time as 
this, and God so near — ay, at the very threshold, 
or within the doors. Let mercy crown the 
end, mercy as you hope for mercy. Seigneur — 
Seigneur.’ 

Beaufoy put up one hand and grasped the 
splintered shaft to hold it firmly in its place. 


HIGH AND LOW JUSTICE 259 


and with the other he leaned heavily on the 
kneeling monk, raising himself that he might 
see the better. 

‘ Silence, priest !’ he said. ‘ Thy time to 
speak cometh presently, for repentance is not 
far off.’ 

Beyond the narrow windows was the bustle 
of men passing and repassing in great haste. 

‘ Oh for another hour !’ groaned De Beaufoy, 
‘ one hour, one ! Is the light growing dim that 

I cannot see? Surely that shadow was 

Ay, there goes the passing bell. Aid me, 
priest, nearer, nearer, that I may see.’ 

Higher, higher he lifted himself, and at the 
fifth stroke of the bell fell forward at the priest’s 
feet — dead. 


THE END 


17—2 


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L. C. Page and Company's 
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The Kindred of the Wild ; A Book of Animal 
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Large i2mo, cloth, gilt top $2.00 

Mr. Roberts’s latest work of fiction makes a most interest- 
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wild goose, and all the furred and feathered creatures of the 
wilderness and the hunted trails. In view of the great and 
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The Mystery of Murray Davenport. By 

Robert Neilson Stephens, author of “ Captain Raven- 
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Library i2mo, cloth, gilt top, illustrated . . . $1.50 

His latest novel is a new departure for Mr. Stephens, and 
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The Heart of the Ancient Wood. 

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The Forge in the Forest. Being the Narrative 

of the Acadian Ranger, Jean de Mer, Siegneur de Briart, 
and how he crossed the Black Abb^, and of his Adventures 
in a Strange Fellowship. Illustrated by Henry Sandham, 
R. C. A. 

Library i2mo, cloth, gilt top, deckle-edge paper . $1.50 

A romance of the convulsive period of the struggle between 
the French and English for the possession of North America. 
The story is one of pure love and heroic adventure, and deals 
with that fiery fringe of conflict that waved between Nova 
Scotia and New England. 

A Sister to Evangeline. Being the Story of 

Yvonne de Lamourie, and how she went into Exile with the 
Villagers of Grand Pr^. 

Library i2mo, cloth, deckle-edge paper, gilt top, 

illustrated $1.50 

This is a romance of the great expulsion of the Acadians 
which Longfellow first immortalized in “ Evangeline.” Swift 
action, fresh atmosphere, wholesome purity, deep passion, 
searching analysis, characterize this strong novel ; and the 
tragic theme of the exile is relieved by the charm of the wilful 
demoiselle and the spirit of the courtly seigneur, who bring the 
manners of old France to the Acadian woods. 


4 


L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY'S 


Works of Charles G, D, Roberts (Continued) 

Earth’s Enigmas. 

Library 1 2 mo, cloth, uncut edges . . . . $1.25 

This is the author’s first volume of stories and the one which 
discovered him as a fiction writer of advanced rank. The 
tales deal chiefly with those elemental problems of the mys- 
teries of life, — pain, the unknown, the strange kinship of man 
and beast in the struggle for existence, — the enigmas which 
occur chiefly to the primitive folk on the backwoods fringe of 
civilization, and they arrest attention for their sincerity, their 
freshness of first-hand knowledge, and their superior craft 

By the Marshes of Minas. 

Library i2mo, cloth, gilt top, illustrated . . . $1.25 

This is a volume of romance of love and adventure in that 
picturesque period when Nova Scotia was passing from the 
French to the English regime, of which Professor Roberts is 
the acknowledged celebrant Each tale is independent of the 
others, but the scenes are similar, and in several of them the 
evil “ Black Abbd,” well known from the author’s previous 
novels, again appears with his savages at his heels — but to be 
thwarted always by woman’s wit or soldier’s courage. 


WORKS OF 

MAURUS JOKAI 

]VIdna.SSeh. Translated by P. F. Bicknell. With a 
portrait in photogravure of Dr. Jdkai. 

Library i2mo, cloth decorative . . . . $1.50 

An absorbing story of life among a happy and primitive 
people hidden away in far Transylvania, whose peaceful life is 
never disturbed except by the inroads of their turbulent neigh- 
bors, The opening scenes are laid in Rome ; and the view of 
the corrupt, intriguing society there forms a picturesque con- 
trast to the scenes of pastoral simplicity and savage border 
warfare that succeed. 


LIST OP FICTION 


5 


Works of Maurus Jokai (Continued) 

The Baron’s Sons. Translated by P. F. Bicknell. 
With a portrait in photogravure of Dr. Jdkai. 

Library i2mo, cloth decorative . . . , $1.50 

This is an exceedingly interesting romance, the scene of 
which is laid at the courts of St. Petersburg, Moscow, and 
Vienna, and in the armies of the Austrians and Hungarians. 
It follows the fortunes of three young Hungarian noblemen, 
whose careers are involved in the historical incidents of the 
time. 


Pretty flichal : A Romance of Hungary. Au- 
thorized translation by R. Nisbet Bain. With a photo- 
gravure frontispiece of the great Magyar writer. 

Library i2mo, cloth decorative . . . . $1.50 

“ It is at once a spirited tale of ‘ border chivalry,^ a charming love 
story full of genuine poetry, and a graphic picture of life in a coun- 
try and at a period both equally new to English readers.” — Literary 
World. 

riidst the Wild Carpathians. Authorized 

translation by R. Nisbet Bain. With a frontispiece by J. 
W. Kennedy. 

Library i2mo, cloth decorative . . . . $1.25 

A thrilling historical Hungarian novel, in which the extraor- 
dinary dramatic and descriptive powers of the great Magyar 
writer have full play. As a picture of feudal life in Hungary 
it has never been surpassed for fidelity and vividness. 

The Corsair King. a tale of the Buccaneers. 

Large i6mo, cloth, decorative . . . . $1.00 

The Buccaneer adventures are very stirring. The love 
story is a thread of beauty and delicacy, woven in and out a 
few times in the coarser woof of this rough sea atmosphere. 
One leaves the book with the sense that he has actually been 
for awhile in the midst of a corsair’s life of the olden time, — 
felt its fascinations and found its retributions. 


6 


L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY'S 


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WORKS OF 

PAULINE BRADFORD MACKIE 
The Washingtonians. 

One voL, library i2mo, cloth, gilt top, deckle-edge 
paper, with a frontispiece by Philip R. Goodwin . $1,50 

Pauline Bradford Mackie’s new novel deals with Washing- 
ton official society in the early sixties. The plot is based upon 
the career (not long since ended) of a brilliant and well-known 
woman, who was at that time a power in official circles. 

flademoiselle de Berny : a story of valley 

Forge. With five full-page photogravures from drawings 
by Frank T. Merrill. 

One vol., library 1 2 mo, cloth, gilt top . $1.50 

“ The charm of ‘ Mademoiselle de Bemy * lies in its singular 
sweetness.” — Boston Herald. 

“One of the very few choice American historical stories.” — Bos- 
ton Transcript. 

Ye Lyttle Salem Haide : A Story of Witch- 
craft. With four full-page photogravures from drawings 
by E. W. D. Hamilton. 

One vol., library 1 2 mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.50 

A tale of the days of the reign of superstition in New Eng- 
land, and of a brave “ lyttle maide,” of Salem Town, whose 
faith and hope and unyielding adherence to her word of 
honor form the basis of a most attractive story. A very con- 
vincing picture is drawn of Puritan life during the latter part 
of the seventeenth century. 

A Georgian Actress. 

Illustrated by E. W. D. Hamilton. 

One vol., library i2mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.50 

A historical novel dealing with the life of the early settlers 
in the Mohawk Valley, just before the Revolution. From the 
strange life in the wilderness the ambitious girl is transplanted 
to the gay life of the court of George III. and becomes famous 
as an actress in Garrick’s company. 


LEJL ’10 


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